


the many-venomed earth

by curtaincall



Series: A Love Story with Detective Interruptions [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Human, Case Fic, Golden Age of Detective Fiction, M/M, Murder Mystery, Mystery, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, i apologize in advance for Aziraphale's frankly unrealistic level of competence, the massive continuity of ducks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22685590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curtaincall/pseuds/curtaincall
Summary: It’s the trial of the century: bestselling mystery author Anthony Crowley stands accused of poisoning his former lover. He’s got means (arsenic), motive (the breakup), and opportunity (a meeting the night of the murder); his guilt seems certain.Certain, that is, to everyone except Lord Aziraphale Eastgate, rare book collector and amateur detective. Aziraphale’s not sure why he’s so convinced of Crowley’s innocence, but he’s determined to save him from the gallows--by finding the real murderer before it’s too late.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: A Love Story with Detective Interruptions [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865419
Comments: 562
Kudos: 587
Collections: Aziraphale/Crowley Human AUs, Good Omens Human AUs, Ineffable Delights to Sink Your Teeth Into





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is inspired by _Strong Poison_ by Dorothy Sayers, but no familiarity with the novel is required. If you have read the book, note that I've tried my best to change up plot elements while keeping the general thread of the story the same.
> 
>  **A note on homophobia:** For the purposes of this story, homosexuality is treated in the same way/with the same degree of judgement as premarital sex was at the time--i.e., it's viewed as somewhat scandalous by more prudish groups of people, but there's no severe stigma attached.
> 
> Thank you to attheborder and runningturnip for beta reading!
> 
> Work title is from A.E. Housman's _A Shropshire Lad_.

Lord Aziraphale Eastgate was a creature of habit. Each morning, he woke at eight, pulled a dressing-gown on over his pyjamas, and sat down for a full English breakfast, prepared with more enthusiasm than skill by his valet, Newton Pulsifer. Said breakfast was accompanied by Aziraphale’s preferred morning reading—a series of newspapers ranging from the highly respectable to the deeply scandalous. He was accustomed to start with the literary pages, proceeding through to theatrical and Society reports before finishing off with his most treasured section—crime.

Today, however, his gaze was drawn sharply from his eggs to the headline splashed across the front page of the uppermost paper: “TRIAL OF THE CENTURY!”

Such a headline would have been wholly unremarkable on several of the more salacious publications in the stack, but this particular paper was not known for exaggeration, and Aziraphale was intrigued.

He bit into a rasher of bacon, and began reading the story.

_ The trial of noted mystery writer Anthony J. Crowley is set to begin this Thursday and is expected to draw an unusually large audience to the courtroom. Mr. Crowley, the author of such volumes as  _ Death by the Sea  _ and  _ A Fatal Fig Tree,  _ is accused of the murder of his former companion Louis Ferno. Mr. Ferno, himself a writer whose debut novel  _ Myriads Though Bright  _ was shortlisted for several literary prizes, was found to have died from arsenic poisoning last month. Police investigation discovered that Mr. Ferno had visited Mr. Crowley on the evening of his death, and had consumed coffee at his flat. The two men were reportedly overheard having a heated argument, and a search of Mr. Crowley’s flat revealed that he was in possession of arsenic, which he claimed to have purchased as “research for an upcoming novel.” _

_ The trial will be presided over by… _

Aziraphale skimmed the rest of the article, which mentioned Crowley’s counsel for the defence (extremely expensive) and how long the trial was expected to take (not very, given the preponderance of evidence). 

“Newt?” he asked, eyes still fixed on the paper.

“My lord?” Where a highly competent valet would have appeared soundlessly behind Aziraphale, Newt instead moved from kitchen to table with an amount of noise suited to a much heavier man.

“What do I have scheduled for this Thursday?”

“There’s an auction you were hoping to attend,” said Newt, checking the pocket appointment-book he kept on hand. “Several manuscripts of particular interest are on offer.”

Aziraphale hummed thoughtfully. “Cancel that,” he said, after a moment. “I’ve decided to sit in on the trial of the century.”

* * *

As the paper had predicted, the courtroom was packed with journalists, crime enthusiasts, and the generally curious. A fair amount of the latter group left after realizing that the interrogations tended rather more towards the technical than the scandalous, not wishing to sit through hours of belabored medical evidence and a parade of witnesses as to Ferno’s movements on the night of his death.

The salient points, as Aziraphale understood them, were that a postmortem examination had revealed a large quantity of arsenic in the stomach of the deceased; that the arsenic must have been ingested in the last twelve hours of his life; and that the only food or drink he’d been known to consume that day was tea at his publisher’s, fish and chips at a pub, and coffee with Anthony Crowley.

After a brief recess, during which Aziraphale went outside, and smoked a contemplative cigarette, and made pleasant small talk with the less shark-like of the reporters, the Crown called Mary Hodges, secretary at the publishing firm of Hastur & Ligur, to the stand. 

Miss Hodges’ testimony was clear, and Aziraphale marked her down as a solid observer, if a somewhat garrulous speaker. She described Ferno’s visit to the firm’s offices on the day of his death—he’d arrived shortly before four and been shown into Hastur’s office for their meeting. Miss Hodges had then made tea, as she always did, in the office kitchen, and brought it in to serve to the three men, who had taken cups at random and had drunk from the same pot. Both Ligur and Ferno had taken sugar. There had also been a tin of biscuits sent as a gift, which Miss Hodges had brought in from the kitchen, and both Hastur and Ferno had eaten those. The essential point, Aziraphale gathered, was that none of the food or drink had been consumed by only Ferno, nor served in such a way that it might be possible to arrange for him to take a certain portion. 

Next to the stand was the proprietor of the Sitting Duck, the pub where Ferno had eaten his last meal. He had apparently been in a brown study for most of the meal, brusquely ordering his ale and fish-and-chips, and not saying much of anything to the staff. When questioned as to whether Ferno might have had a packet, or a powder of any sort on his person, the pub-owner shrugged unhelpfully and said he might have done, for all he knew, but he hadn’t seen any such thing.

The crowd had started getting restless again, during the last witness, but they perked up again once he stepped down from the box—because the next witness called to testify was Anthony Crowley.

He’d been sitting in the dock for the entire trial, and where most men looking to convince a jury of their innocence would have kept upright, tried to convey through a ramrod-straight spine that their behavior was equally upstanding, Crowley sat sprawled out on the chair, arms folded across his chest. His expression had scarcely changed the entire trial—Aziraphale had glanced over at him more than once, to see his reactions, and noticed only the smallest tensing in his jaw, the slow blink of his eyes from time to time. As Crowley approached the witness-box, Aziraphale saw that his hands were shaking almost imperceptibly, and realized in a rush that his apparent unconcern was masking some simmering anxiety. 

“You are Anthony J. Crowley of 666 Sayers Lane, London?”

“I am.” Crowley’s voice was almost as aggressively casual as his posture, but it, too, had a brittle edge to it.

“Thank you, Mr. Crowley. You have stated that Mr. Ferno visited you at your residence on the night of June twenty-fifth; that is correct?”

“It is.” 

“When did he arrive?”

“A bit after eight p.m., I think.”

“And you served him coffee at that time?”

Crowley nodded. “Served both of us coffee. Was making a pot anyway, asked if he’d fancy any.”

“Please describe how you served the coffee.”

Crowley scratched the top of his head. “Well, I would’ve gone into the kitchen—”

“Did Mr. Ferno come with you?”

“No, he stayed in the sitting room. Uh, I went into the kitchen, got down the mugs from the cupboard, poured out the coffee, and brought it back into the sitting room for Louis.”

“Did Mr. Ferno take anything in his coffee?”

“Yeah, uh, he had sugar. Two lumps, I think.”

“Did you have sugar?”

Crowley shifted his weight, slightly enough that a less attentive observer than Aziraphale might have missed it. “Yeah.”

“How much sugar, Mr. Crowley?”

“Four lumps,” said Crowley, making a face, and Aziraphale was seized with the unaccountable urge to  _ laugh.  _ At a  _ murder  _ trial.

“How long did Mr. Ferno remain at your residence?”

“About two hours.”

“And what did you discuss during that time?”

“Our relationship,” Crowley said, an edge of challenge in his voice.

“You had been on terms of intimacy with the deceased?”

“We were lovers,” Crowley said, airily, “if that’s what you mean.”

There was a general scandalized murmur from the galleries. Rather hypocritical of them all, Aziraphale thought privately. As though half the appeal of this trial weren’t the flagrantly open nature of Ferno and Crowley’s relationship. The counsel for the defence was scowling, as though he’d warned his client about being too forthright and been summarily ignored, but Aziraphale rather thought it might actually be wise of Crowley not to underplay the specific nature of his intimacy with Ferno. After all, there was scarcely any chance that any given juror wouldn’t already be well aware of the facts, and by exhibiting no shame whatever about his history, Crowley managed to give off the impression that he had nothing to hide. One or two of the jury might, perhaps, take against such brazen honestly, but it was worth the risk, in Aziraphale’s view.

“But you had ended this... _ irregular  _ relationship prior to June twenty-fifth?” the prosecutor was asking.

“Yes.”

“Was it ended on your initiative, or Mr. Ferno’s?”

“Mine.”

“For any particular reason?”

“I discovered,” Crowley said, wryly, “that Louis and I had been operating under different assumptions as to the exclusivity of our relationship.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to state that more plainly, Mr. Crowley.”

“If you insist,” said Crowley, shrugging. A muscle in his neck tensed. “I found out he’d been unfaithful.”

“So the relationship did not, you might say, end on amicable terms.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Crowley said lightly. “We didn’t have any sort of  _ quarrel  _ about it, if that’s what you mean. I just—” he looked down, for a second, and Aziraphale was unaccountably frustrated by not being able to see the look in his eyes— “just found out he wasn’t the person I’d thought he was, y’know? That things that I’d thought were important weren’t really, after all. So there just wasn’t any point in it anymore.”

Aziraphale doubted whether that explanation would resonate much with the jury—the Crown would likely continue to push the narrative of Crowley as a scorned lover, reeling from Ferno’s betrayal—but he found that he, for his own part, understood Crowley’s reasoning perfectly. 

“And at what point in time did your relationship with Mr. Ferno end?”

“April,” Crowley said. “Early April.”

“And did you see Mr. Ferno at all in the time period between the conclusion of your relationship and June twenty-fifth?”

“Not on purpose,” said Crowley, and the corners of his mouth twitched in a smile. 

“Could you clarify that, please?”

“Ah, I didn’t arrange to see him, or anything, but we crossed paths at a party or two. Same circles, same friends—it wasn’t surprising.”

“Do you remember the dates of these parties?”

“Not exactly.”

“Do you attend a lot of parties, Mr. Crowley?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Well, then, it seems singular that you shouldn’t remember the dates, if you don’t attend so very many.”

“One was in May, I think,” said Crowley, irritably, “and the other early June.”

“Thank you.” There was a slight sneer to it, a suggestion of  _ well, that wasn’t so hard, now was it?  _ The Crown was, Aziraphale noted, trying to make it seem as though Crowley were unreliable in his account of his own movements.

“Now, how did this meeting on June twenty-fifth come about?”

“Louis wrote me and asked if he could come and talk. I said all right, but that I didn’t think it’d do much good. I’d quite made up my mind about the whole thing.”

“And when did this correspondence take place?”

“Ah...about a week or so before,” Crowley said. “Not exactly certain.”

The prosecutor raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “Surely these letters were dated?”

“Probably were,” Crowley admitted, “only I haven’t got the one Louis sent me anymore and I don’t know what he did with mine.”

“You didn’t save the letter?”

“Not really in the habit of archiving trivial correspondence,” Crowley said dryly.

Aziraphale winced. Juries, in his experience, didn’t tend to respond well to irony, or sarcasm, or arch remarks. Crowley’s admission of his relationship with Ferno had been refreshingly forthright; the elliptical way he’d described their break-up and his current vagueness as to timelines gave the opposite impression. Aziraphale, with his extensive experience observing witness testimonies, was certain this apparent contempt was the result of a growing anxiety; he didn’t think the jury would necessarily see it that way.

The prosecutor, having either gotten what he wanted or decided he wasn’t going to, changed tactics. “Did you visit a chemist’s on June fourteenth?”

“Can’t say for sure it was the fourteenth,” Crowley said, “but yeah, around that time.”

“And what did you purchase at this establishment?”

“Arsenic,” said Crowley.

Sensation in the courtroom—and Aziraphale was again irritated, because this had  _ been  _ in all the papers, surely everyone present  _ knew  _ perfectly well that Crowley had bought arsenic, what was the sense in pretending to be shocked?

He wondered, fleetingly, why he found himself so bothered by the behavior of the lookers-on. He tended to view them as an easily ignored nuisance, but today he found them a source of constant vexation. And, indeed, he had a great deal less riding on this trial than most of the others he’d observed—those, he’d spent going over evidence in his mind, the facts as he’d discovered them, the likelihood of a conviction—and the likelihood that his own interference would result in the end of a man’s life. A guilty man’s life, always, he’d never doubted that, but a life nevertheless. He’d asked himself, time and again, whether he was right to meddle, and he told himself, time and again, that without his meddling it would be far more likely than an innocent man might take the blame. But somewhere in the darkest parts of his soul lived an unpleasant certainty—he didn’t investigate crime out of any innate desire for justice. He did it because it was stimulating, and challenging, and  _ fun.  _

But today was different—today, Aziraphale discovered, wasn’t  _ fun  _ at all, and he considered leaving before realizing that he’d only drive himself mad wondering about the verdict.

“And for what purpose did you purchase this arsenic?”

“Well,” said Crowley, elongating the word, “I don’t know if you’re aware, but I write books.”

_ Stop,  _ Aziraphale thought,  _ stop, stop, you’ll only turn them all against you, just  _ answer the questions,  _ for Heaven’s sake, stop putting your bloody  _ personality  _ into it. _

“I believe everyone present is quite aware of that, Mr. Crowley,” said the prosecutor.  _ He  _ could get away with being deadpan.

“They’re mysteries,” Crowley said, apparently deciding to drop the attitude, “and I do a great deal of research for them, y’know, make sure that what happens in them could  _ actually  _ happen in real life. I’m working on one right now where the crime’s a poisoning, and I wanted to see whether you could, actually, just go on into a chemist’s and buy arsenic, no trouble.”

“And did you have any trouble?”

Crowley shook his head. “They had me sign a sort of book-thing, but that was it. Signed my own name, as I didn’t much care whether anyone knew, but I could’ve put someone else’s, I expect, if I’d wanted.”

That was good, Aziraphale thought, good that Crowley had signed his own name—showed he hadn’t got anything to hide. Less good, of course, that he’d just demonstrated that he’d been thinking like a criminal, about how to hide his actions, but that  _ had  _ to be a side effect of spending one’s days devising fictional murder plots.

“And what did you do with the arsenic, once you had obtained it?”

Crowley shook his head. “I didn’t actually  _ need  _ it, uh, for anything, just needed to  _ buy  _ it, and I didn’t exactly fancy having the stuff sitting around the house, so I dropped it in a bin on the way home from the chemist’s.”

“So you, then, would maintain that you did  _ not  _ have arsenic in your possession on June twenty-fifth.”

“I do maintain it.”

“Despite the fact that you were witnessed having purchased arsenic on June fourteenth, your name is signed in the register, and you admit yourself to having done so, you claim that you did not possess any arsenic eleven days later.”

“Correct,” said Crowley, fidgeting slightly. “Like I said, I only wanted to see if I could buy it.”

“To return, then, to the night of June twenty-fifth. You said you and Mr. Ferno discussed your relationship. What form did that discussion take?”

“Just...a discussion, really. He, uh, he wanted to start things up again, and I told him I wasn’t interested. And it went on like that for a while, actually. Longer than you’d think possible.”

“We have a signed statement from one of your neighbors saying that she heard raised voices coming from your flat that evening. Did this  _ discussion  _ turn acrimonious?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” Crowley said carefully. “Louis became  _ insistent,  _ I suppose, that we ought to have another go of it, and I realized that I couldn’t fob him off with polite refusals any longer. So I got a bit more assertive about it. No  _ shouting,  _ or anything, mind you. Just told him that if he hadn’t got anything of substance to say then he could jolly well shove off, because I wasn’t about to listen to another hour of groveling.”

“And he accepted this?”

“Yeah. At last. Around ten he seemed to pick up on the fact that it wasn’t any use going another round, and told me to think it over again and let him know. I said that I didn’t need to think it over and that he already knew. Well, he didn’t much like that, I suppose, but he didn’t argue any more, just left.”

“And what did you do with the coffee things, after he left?”

“Uh,” said Crowley, and smiled unexpectedly. “Cleaned ‘em up.”

“Right away?”

“Yeah,” Crowley said, a bit defensively, “I prefer things neat.”

“What exactly did you clean up?”

“I washed the pot, and the mugs, and the spoons.”

“Not the sugar bowl?”

“No, there was still sugar in there, so I just put it back on the shelf.”

“And what did you do after that?”

“Went to bed.”

“And when did you hear of Mr. Ferno’s death?”

“The day after. Got a call from my publishers—his publishers too. Wanted to know if I’d heard anything about it.”

The prosecutor nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Crowley.”

Crowley left the witness-box and walked slowly back to the dock. Aziraphale watched his hands. They’d stopped shaking.  _ Only nervous about the testimony, then,  _ he thought.  _ Not the trial itself.  _ He quickly revised this estimation as he saw that Crowley, who’d seemingly not blinked once while under oath, closed his eyes immediately upon sitting back down. Relief, perhaps, or a desire to shield whatever emotions lurked there.

As the judge summed up the case, Aziraphale watched the jury, looking closely for clues as to how they might vote. Most of them looked more bored than anything; a few seemed impatient, presumably wanting to get back to their jobs and families. One woman, middle-aged and shrewd-looking, had a notebook out in front of her and was jotting things down from time to time. Aziraphale found himself watching her, his attention flitting back and forth between her reactions and Crowley’s, which, though subtle, were clear to Aziraphale’s well-trained eye. 

At last, the judge finished, and the jury withdrew to deliberate. The prisoner, too, was led away, and the public began standing up, and stretching, and initiating long conversations about how he’d definitely done it, didn’t you see the way he  _ admitted  _ to having arsenic, bold as you please, probably mad…

Aziraphale felt the abrupt need for some air.

On the way out of the courtroom, he collided with a familiar figure.

“My lord!” Detective-Sergeant Shadwell seemed a great deal more pleased to see Aziraphale than he generally was—presumably because, this time, Aziraphale wasn’t swooping in to the middle of an active investigation and turning everything topsy-turvy. “Come to see the trial of the century, have you?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, shortly.

“I’m afraid it’s all pretty cut and dried,” Shadwell said, conversationally. “He did it, of course. No doubt of that. The jury won’t be long, I’d think; it’s a strong case. One of our best, don’t you think, m’lord?”

“I don’t, actually,” Aziraphale said, not looking at Shadwell. “As a matter of fact, he didn’t do it.”

“No!” Shadwell said, disbelieving. “You’re having me on. It’s all perfectly clear.”

“Oh, yes,” said Aziraphale miserably, “it’s all perfectly clear. You’ve made an excellent case. Only you’ve got the wrong man.”

“But how do you  _ know?”  _ Shadwell pressed. “Is there something we missed? A flaw in the evidence, something…”

“No,” Aziraphale said, and sighed. “No flaws. Just the big one. I don’t know  _ why  _ I know it, I don’t even know  _ how  _ I know it, but I do know it. Anthony Crowley is innocent.”

“Well,” said Shadwell, sounding unconvinced, “ah, far be it from me to question your expertise, m’lord, but I don’t think the jury will see it that way.”

“I expect you’re right,” said Aziraphale, and stood up. “You’ll excuse me.”

“Of course,” Shadwell said, and Aziraphale brushed by him and headed out to smoke and brood.

* * *

It was nearly five hours before the jury returned. After the first hour, Aziraphale began to feel hopeful—it clearly  _ wasn’t  _ as cut and dried as Shadwell had thought, not if they were this long about it. After about the third, he grew despondent again, because  _ surely  _ the majority had to be for conviction, and  _ surely  _ they’d wear down whoever had decided to hold out. And he was just about deciding that no, perhaps they  _ wouldn’t,  _ if  _ he _ felt morally certain of Crowley’s innocence then why shouldn’t a juror, when a clutter of footsteps from the hallway signalled that the jury was returning.

“Members of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?”

The foreman, a tall, thin fellow with a graying beard, shook his head. “We can’t.”

The judge frowned. “Are you certain? You may have more time, you know, if you need it.”

The foreman shot a malevolent glare at the shrewd-looking woman that Aziraphale had noticed before. “We won’t be reaching a verdict anytime before the end of the world, I’m afraid,” he said bitterly.

The judge sighed. “Very well, then, you are hereby discharged. A new trial will commence in thirty days, with a fresh jury.”

Aziraphale felt an ache at the side of his face, and found that he was grinning.

In the dock, Anthony Crowley looked a good deal less celebratory. He didn’t, Aziraphale realized, even look  _ relieved.  _ He looked, more than anything, as though he rather dreaded the prospect of having to go through the whole rigamarole again.

Aziraphale decided that this would  _ not  _ do. He wound his way down the benches to where Shadwell was sitting, grumbling to his neighbor about women who got Ideas.

“My lord,” he said, voice changing as Aziraphale approached. “Seems you know something I don’t.”

“Only one thing,” Aziraphale said, “and I told it to you already. That man isn’t a murderer, and I know you’ll say that you can’t tell a murderer by looking at him, and ordinarily I’d agree with you, but I’ve been watching him all day and I  _ know  _ he’s no killer.”

“What do you intend to do about it, then?”

“I want to see him,” said Aziraphale.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again to attheborder and runningturnip for beta reading!
> 
> content note: this chapter contains discussion of suicide as a possible theory for the case.

Even pulling the various strings that being the younger brother of the richest peer in England allowed you to pull, it was still two days before Aziraphale could get in to see Crowley, and then only for an hour. 

He was shown into a grey-walled and dour room, seated at a table, another empty chair across from him, and told to _wait, m’lord, we’ll fetch the prisoner._

Crowley, when they brought him in, looked more rumpled than he had in Court, his clothing a bit askew, his eyes heavy from lack of sleep. He sat down heavily, sprawling out in the same fashion as before, legs splayed wide, arms crossed against his chest. 

Aziraphale, who was equally accustomed to being treated with hostility as with deference, ignored this. “Ah—hello,” he said, once the guard had left. “So good of you to agree to see me.”

Crowley shrugged. “Well. Good of _you_ to come, I’d say.”

“Oh, no, not at all,” said Aziraphale, and felt himself flushing. “That is—I was at your trial, you know, and I saw what happened, and I thought—well, I thought I could _help._ With your case, you see.”

“It’s good of you,” Crowley said, again, sounding as though he almost meant it, “but I’ve got a lawyer. Several, actually, very expensive and all that.”

“Oh—yes,” Aziraphale said, “but I’m not a lawyer, you know. I’m—” he stuttered over it, he always stuttered over it, it sounded so _ridiculously_ stupid to say— “a detective.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said, unexpectedly. “I _have_ heard of you. Lord Aziraphale Eastgate.”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale. “Yes. That’s me. So,” he continued, looking into Crowley’s steady eyes (had the man blinked even _once_?), “I thought perhaps I might be able to help in a way your lawyers haven’t.”

“Mmm,” said Crowley. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but—why?”

“Look,” said Aziraphale, and leaned forward, as much as he could without drawing the ire of the guards watching from behind the glass— “if you, erm, if you don’t want me to help, or, or you think I’m some sort of hopelessly aristocratic dabbler who’ll only muck everything up for you by barging in, please do tell me and I’ll leave at once, no harm done. I’m well aware I seem like an over-privileged idiot with too much time on his hands and not enough common-sense to use it for anything besides playing detective. I don’t expect to be able to convince you otherwise.”

Crowley blinked, slowly, his mouth falling open slightly. “Um,” he said, at last. “You—you don’t need to convince me. Of anything. Please don’t say you do.”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, and sat back in his chair.

“And it is—it’s nice, I suppose. To have someone in my corner. I mean, I’ve got the lawyers, but they think I did it, you know.”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, “I rather got that sense from them.”

“But you…” Crowley sat up straighter. “You don’t? Think I’m guilty? Because, I mean, everyone else does, the bloody lawyers do, the press, eleven out of the twelve jurors…I expect _I’d_ think I did it, if I weren’t me.”

“But you _are_ you,” Aziraphale said, quietly. “And you didn’t do it.”

“I didn’t,” said Crowley, fiercely, leaning forward towards Aziraphale. He reached a hand out, but stopped halfway across the table, his gaze flitting to the guards, and withdrew his arm. After a moment, he sat back again. “I have to say,” he continued, resuming his former unconcerned tone and posture, “it is nice to know that at least _someone_ believes I’m innocent.”

“Well, I do,” Aziraphale said, “and so did that twelfth juror, so there’s two of us. Off to rather a good start, I’d say. Oh—three, actually. Us and the murderer.”

“The murderer?” Crowley asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “You don’t—oh, I’m sorry, I should’ve asked—you don’t know who _did_ kill him, do you?”

Crowley shook his head. “No idea.”

“Any likely names spring to mind? Enemies?”

“Oh, plenty,” Crowley said, easily. “Louis was a right bastard, you know, didn’t give a damn whether he made enemies.”

“Anyone who might have _really_ hated him, then?”

“I don’t think so,” Crowley said. “It’s hard to say. But, look here, the issue isn’t the _motive,_ is it? What I mean is, knowing a bit about murder myself on account of, you know, the books, we could have half London walking around wanting to kill Louis and it wouldn’t matter a bit if they didn’t get a _chance._ And I’ve got to say it seems rather conclusively proven that no one but me _had_ a chance.”

“We’ll figure that bit out,” Aziraphale said with more confidence than he felt. “But you _did_ have a chance. And you hated him?”

Crowley shook his head. “Dunno whether it means anything different to you, but it does to me—I didn’t _hate_ Louis. I _despised_ him. Like he was a rat, or a cockroach. I’d have stepped on him, given the chance, but I simply didn’t _care_ enough to kill him.”

“Didn’t you?” Aziraphale asked. “Not to—it sounds ridiculous to say _not to be forward,_ but I assure you I don’t mean to be—didn’t you care? That he’d betrayed you?”

“I don’t know,” Crowley said. “I just—did you ever make a god of someone, in your mind? Build him up to be more than human, more than he was?”

He paused, and waited for an answer, and Aziraphale, who’d thought the questions were rhetorical, scrambled a bit. “I—no, I don’t think I have, really.”

“Well,” Crowley said, “it only takes the one crack, you know, the one peek behind the curtain, and the whole damn thing falls apart. Louis had talked so much about _principles,_ and the value of _love,_ and how much better it was to live according to one’s own laws rather than the laws of society, you know? And then I found out that he hadn’t any principles after all, or they weren’t the ones I thought he’d had, anyway, and the whole thing seemed stupid, that’s all. And when you find out your idol’s a false one, it’s not—it’s not the idol’s fault, for being false, so much as it’s your own, for making him an idol in the first place.”

“No,” said Aziraphale, softly, “I don’t quite—I mean, he _did_ deceive you.”

Crowley’s mouth quirked up. “Are you trying to endow me with a motive?”

Aziraphale felt himself smiling in return. “I suppose not. Would be rather counter-productive of me, wouldn’t it?” He paused. “So, you haven’t got any theories as to the perpetrator, then?”

“I think he might’ve done it himself,” Crowley said, shrugging. “Seems the only possibility.”

“Well, we’ll look into that,” Aziraphale said, “see if we can find anything about _him_ having arsenic. You think he did it...when? After he talked to you?”

“Not sure,” Crowley said, thoughtfully. “He seemed _—off_ , you know, when he came and spoke to me. I put it down to wounded pride, that I’d turned him down again, even when he came crawling back, but—it could’ve been something else, couldn’t it? If he’d already taken the stuff?”

“I suppose,” said Aziraphale. “Though— you knew him well, of course, but—well, I mean to say, would it make sense for him to come and try to win you back, or whatever it was, if he knew he’d just eaten a lovely arsenic sandwich? Seems that any renewal of your relationship would be necessarily short-lived. Although,” he added, courteously, “I don’t mean to underrate what I’m sure is the great pleasure of your company.”

Crowley flushed slightly. “Heh. Ah. No, you’re probably right, or, well, he might’ve come to see me after poisoning himself but I don’t think he’d have gone without mentioning it. Would’ve rubbed it in, I think.”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, “that’s rather the idea I had, too. So if he _did_ kill himself, then, it stands to reason he’d have done so at some point _after_ your interview.”

“Seems that way,” said Crowley, flinching backward.

Aziraphale sat up straight. “Look here, you mustn’t go about thinking it’s your fault in any way if he _did_ decide to off himself after speaking with you.”

“Shouldn’t I?”

Aziraphale shook his head firmly. “Not in the slightest. After all, he’d have had to have _bought_ the arsenic at some point beforehand, unless you think he popped into a chemist’s that late at night. Which—we’ll look into that, of course, if it _was_ suicide we may be able to find where he bought the stuff. But likely it was well before he went to see you, and so he must’ve already had the idea of it in his mind.”

“I suppose,” said Crowley. 

“However,” Aziraphale continued, his train of thought well off and running, “from what I’ve heard about the fellow, seems like he’d likely have tried to use that as a weapon, you know, in your argument—discussion, what have you. _If you don’t agree to see me again I’ll go through with it—_ that sort of sordid thing.”

“I don’t know,” said Crowley, “and at any rate he _didn’t,_ when it came down to it.”

“Yes, there is that,” Aziraphale said. “Then we’ve got to ask ourselves, if he took it himself after leaving you, _where_ did he do it? Hard to imagine the fellow just opened up a packet and swallowed it on down, right there in the street, isn’t it? But if he waited till he got home to take it, like you’d think, then why didn’t we find any sign of it at his flat? Oh, I know it wouldn’t have killed him instantly, of course, he’d plenty of time to dispose of the packet, or the glass of whatever it was he’d have used to wash it down, but I don’t see any reason _why_ he should have pottered around cleaning up after himself instead of lying down and dying peacefully like a sensible chap.”

“Unless he meant to frame me,” Crowley said darkly.

“Do you think he would’ve?”

Crowley thought for a moment. “No,” he said, at last, “I don’t, really. He’d need to be a good deal more bitter than he was—and, I mean, he _was_ bitter, he was bitter at everyone and everything, I’d say, but not at _me_ specifically. If he killed himself, it was to spite the world, not anyone in particular in it.”

“I see,” said Aziraphale. “Do you mind—that is, I know we haven’t much time, but do you mind telling me anything else you think might be important about him? Even if you haven’t any idea who might’ve done it, it’d be helpful, I think, to hear your measure of him. Could give me something to work on.”

“All right,” said Crowley, and stretched backward a fraction, making eye contact with the guard as he did so, blinking slowly, as though to say _look, I’m not touching, not breaking any rules, can’t come for me, can you?_ “Where should I start?”

“Well,” said Aziraphale, “you met Louis Ferno—when?”

“About five years ago,” Crowley said easily. “At a party. Forget whose.”

“You’d published what, five books by then? Yourself?”

Crowley raised his eyebrows. “Surely _you_ don’t read _my_ books.”

Aziraphale laughed weakly. “No—or, well, that is—I _hadn’t_ read them. Before Thursday. But I thought—well, I rather thought that I’d better take a look. If I were to help you.” _Because I was driving myself half-mad trying not to think about how long it was taking for me to get here for this interview,_ he added silently. He’d been irritable and keyed-up all week-end, snapping at Newt for what were quite ordinary mistakes, unable to think of much besides the Crowley case. Aziraphale got this way, he’d found, from time to time—but more often when he was deep into a case, invested in the outcome, worried about failure, or finding the wrong man. Not, as now, when he’d only just begun looking into the matter. It was, he decided, likely because of the time-pressure inherent in the situation—Crowley’s new trial was in thirty days’ time (twenty-eight, now), and the nagging feeling of working against a clock was no doubt what was causing him this early stress. So, after trying and failing, on Saturday, to distract himself with a catalog of manuscripts that had just come in, he gave it up as a bad business and decided to read as many Crowley novels as he could find by way of research.

“What’d you think?” Crowley asked. “Real detective like you, expect you saw right through ‘em.”

“No,” Aziraphale said, quickly, “no, or, that is, of course they’re not _realistic,_ but then—they’re not supposed to be, are they?”

Crowley’s mouth twitched in a smile. “They’re not, at that. Not that you’d know that, from the letters I get. _Dear Mr. Crowley,”_ he said, putting on an exaggerated, mincing voice, “ _I_ _must tell you that my cousin’s barber’s nephew is a constable, and_ he _says that he would_ never _let an outsider like Virgil Vane in to see a crime scene…_ things like that. But it didn’t bother you, then?”

“No,” said Aziraphale, “and, after all, I hardly have the right to complain about laymen being let in to see crime scenes, do I?”

“I suppose not,” Crowley said. “Actually,” he added, not looking at Aziraphale, “I used you, or, ah, a story about you, from the papers, as a bit of inspiration. For one of the books.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale asked, feeling unaccountably warmed. “I don’t—that couldn’t have been one of the ones I read, then.”

“It was _Murder in Mayfair,”_ Crowley said, “the one with the stolen helicopter plans. I’d gotten Vane all locked up and needed someone to spring him, so I gave him an associate, of sorts, just for that book. An aristocratic fellow who’d taken a bit of an interest in the crime. Thought of it since I’d just seen an article about you coming in and solving the Pratchett diamonds case. I got letters about that, too,” he added. “ _Why couldn’t Vane help himself by…_ It’s remarkable, really, how much the Public has to say about the writing of mysteries. A wonder anyone bothers, when his work’s only going to be picked over for plot holes and inconsistencies by some depressed stocking salesman who fancies himself an amateur sleuth. But. In any case. I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty.” He shifted his gaze to the table. “Character’s not _based_ on you, really, only _inspired._ ”

“Oh—” said Aziraphale, “oh, no, not at all. Jolly flattering, I should say. Dreadful for one’s ego, as a matter of fact. I must have my man hunt that one down, then. _Murder in Mayfair,_ you say. No, I didn’t read that one, as it happens, but I did get through a few more, and they’re—they’re really very clever, you know. Or, I expect you _do_ know, but I’ll say it anyway. I couldn’t guess who did it at all in _The Bandstand Mystery._ Stimulating stuff.”

Crowley grinned widely, the smile taking over his whole face, lighting up his eyes. “Glad you like ‘em. I _was_ proud of that one. Took me ages working out the trick with the sword.” 

“I should think so,” said Aziraphale. “But,” he continued, uncomfortably aware of the limited time they had left, “to return to the late Mr. Ferno—you were yourself an established author, then, at the time you met him?”

“You could say so,” Crowley said. “And Louis was fresh off the success of _Myriads Though Bright,_ back then. Everyone wanted him at their parties.”

“Including you?”

“Well, if I’d thrown any literary sorts of parties, I expect I would’ve. But I—well, you can guess how it is. Start churning out anything that anybody actually _buys_ and the Bohemian lot start decrying it as Not Art. I was still getting invited to things, then, of course, that’s how I met Louis, but more on the strength of my sparkling personality than on my merits as a writer.”

“I see,” said Aziraphale. “And you met him, and…”

“And I thought,” Crowley said, frankly, “that he was a genius. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve read _Myriads Though Bright,_ but the things it does with words...the _language_ in it, it was something I’d never seen before. Someone introduced us, I forget who, and I told him how much I admired his writing and he thanked me, and then said _oh yes, and you write those clever little puzzles, don’t you,_ and I felt...tiny, I suppose. Insignificant. It’s incredible,” he said, leaning forward a bit, “how much hearing the same compliments, over and over and over again, starts to make them feel like insults. _Clever_ and _charming_ and _entertaining_ and all that, and then there was Louis getting to hear that he’d made someone _cry_ for hours, or throw out everything they’d ever written and start again now that they’d seen what writing _could_ be like. And I was one of ‘em, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t see through it then. I was just desperate to impress him, and to feel _worthy,_ and, well. Regardless of what he thought of my _clever little puzzles,_ he found me good enough for... _something,_ anyway.”

Crowley stretched backward, again, and Aziraphale’s eyes tracked the movement, the long line of his neck, the shifting of his body under his shapeless clothes. He was dreadfully thin, Aziraphale thought, watching the way his shirt pulled against his torso as he moved, revealing, for a moment, the taut surface of his stomach.

“You are well?” he asked, without thinking.

Crowley jolted a bit in surprise, and his shirt shifted back again. “I’m sorry?”

“Nothing,” Aziraphale said, clearing his throat. “I only—they do _feed_ you here, yes?”

Crowley smiled widely. “Yeah,” he said, “not _good_ food, but there’s enough of it.”

“Good,” said Aziraphale, hearing the breathiness in his own voice. “Good, good. Ah—so you and Ferno began your relationship, after meeting at this party…”

Crowley nodded. “Moved in together about a year after that.”

“And your financial situation...it was stable, I take it?”

“Oh, very,” Crowley said wryly. “People do _buy_ my books, even if they don’t write me letters about how they’ve changed their lives. And _Myriads_ was successful enough that Louis had plenty of money, too, though that did dry up as we got further out from the initial splash. And his other books, well…”

“I wasn’t familiar with them,” Aziraphale admitted. “My man is finding me copies, but I thought it more prudent to start with yours. And, likely, more pleasant.”

Crowley snorted. “Have you read _Myriads Though Bright?”_

“When it first came out,” Aziraphale said, “and not since.”

“I re-read it again, this year,” Crowley said. “After I’d left him. And, turns out, it’s not good. At all. The whole thing, just so much rubbish.”

“I don’t remember much liking it myself,” Aziraphale admitted.

“Oh, the language is still there,” Crowley continued, “still sounds as beautiful as it ever did. But I realized that it doesn’t _mean_ anything. It’s style without substance, which, if that wasn’t Louis through and through…”

“And the others were like that too, then?”

“Even more so,” Crowley said. “Seems the general public caught on a bit before I did, because the next two fairly flopped. Hastur and Ligur—our publishers, we had the same ones, actually, just by coincidence—didn’t seem too bothered, though. Louis was working on something else for them when we ended things. Not sure what—he never let me see things before they were done.”

“I’ll look into that,” Aziraphale said. “But—no money troubles, even after you left him, then?”

Crowley shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

“And as to his will…”

“I don’t know,” Crowley said slowly. “I’d have thought…”

“That you’d be his heir?”

“He made one,” Crowley said. “A few years back. I did too. Leaving everything to each other. I didn’t bother changing mine, afterwards—didn’t think of it—and I don’t know whether he did…”

“He didn’t, as it happens,” Aziraphale said. 

“Another motive for me, then,” said Crowley.

“Which gets us nowhere,” said Aziraphale firmly. “Because we’re looking in _other_ directions.”

“Right,” said Crowley. “And, I should say, I don’t _need_ his money. However much of it there ends up being. I’ll turn it down, if that helps.”

“I shouldn’t think it’ll come to that,” Aziraphale said. 

Crowley smiled at him, a different smile from the easy grins of before, more tentative. Aziraphale wanted to say something, some further reassurance, some pertinent comment, and he searched Crowley’s eyes as though they might hold a clue as to how best to help him. Crowley held his gaze, and Aziraphale felt pinioned, caught in its bronze intensity. He’d watched Crowley for hours on Thursday, but now he felt as if in a single thoughtful stare Crowley had managed to observe Aziraphale in equally thorough fashion.

They sat, still and silent, for another moment, until a guard knocked on the window.

Aziraphale blinked rapidly, and looked away. “That’ll be the end of our time, then, I’m afraid,” he said, racking his brains quickly for any last questions. “I’ll—that is, I’ll do my best to get back into visit again in a few days. Let you know how the investigation’s proceeding. If you don’t mind, of course.”

Crowley snorted. “I haven’t exactly got anywhere else to be, have I?”

“I suppose not,” Aziraphale said. “But—look here, do buck up. I know it might seem somewhat dreary and hopeless, the whole thing, but you’ve got me now, and I’m _very_ clever.” He stood up as the guard entered the room to show him out. “You will not hang for this,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Not while I can prevent it.”

Crowley opened his mouth, as though to respond, but seemed to think better of it, and shut it again. “I suppose I ought to thank you,” he said, after a moment.

Aziraphale shook his head. “Not yet. Thank me when you’re clear out of this. There’ll be time enough then.”

* * *

“So,” Aziraphale said, loosening his bowtie and resting his stockinged feet on an ottoman, “if it’s suicide, we’ve got to prove it, and that’s damned difficult, you know.”

“Do you think it _was_ suicide?” Newt asked, pencil hovering eagerly above his notebook. “That’s what Mr. Crowley said he thought?”

Aziraphale nodded slowly. “That _was_ his theory, but I’m not certain I agree. He said Ferno seemed _off,_ but from the sound of things he was volatile at the best of times, so I don’t know whether that’s anything to go by. And the logistics of the thing don’t match up with the psychology, do they? Either he took arsenic _before_ going to see Crowley, in which case why did he bother going at all if he weren’t going to mention it, or he took it _after,_ in which case, did he have it at the ready or did he have to acquire it? And what happened to it after he was done? And the medical evidence, you know, from his stomach, makes it seem quite unlikely that he’d have taken it as late as that. No, I don’t much like the suicide theory, but we may as well do the thing thoroughly. You can do that bit, Newt, if you’d be so good—check in with the chemists in the area, see if Ferno purchased arsenic, or anyone like him. And you’d better head to that pub, too, see if you can find out anything there that the police might’ve missed.”

“All right,” said Newt, jotting all this down furiously. 

Many people who were aware of the high value Aziraphale placed on being well-turned-out had been baffled to learn that far from employing some Jeeves-like Uber-valet, he had his shoes shined and his collars starched by the bundle of nerves and clumsiness that was Newton Pulsifer. And, indeed, Newt’s skill at fixing ties and brushing waistcoats left a great deal to be desired. But Aziraphale was, after all, quite capable of managing that sort of thing himself. What he found Newt _most_ useful for was a skillset he couldn’t ape: gathering information from barkeepers, maids, chimney-sweeps, and children—people who tended to react with instinctive wariness to Aziraphale’s posh accent and aristocratic demeanor. Newt mumbled and stammered and fidgeted, and was trusted instinctively. 

“What’ll you do, my lord?” he asked, closing his notebook.

Aziraphale sighed. “I’ve got an appointment with those publisher chaps tomorrow. They’re the ones paying for the defence, you know. Don’t want their pet murder-factory hanged, I should think.”

“Very good, sir,” said Newt. “Anything else?”

“You might bring me a gin-and-tonic,” Aziraphale said. “That’s all.”

“Of course,” said Newt, and withdrew.

Aziraphale reached over to the table beside his armchair, and pulled _Myriads Though Bright_ from the stack of books that sat there. He flipped to the first page, and made an instinctive noise of dismay at the opening paragraph, which consisted almost entirely of unnecessary adjectives and convoluted sentence structure.

“There you are, my lord,” said Newt, placing Aziraphale’s drink on the table. 

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said. “Oh—if you should have a moment, would you mind dreadfully looking to see if you can hunt down a copy of _Murder in Mayfair?_ One of the Crowley novels. I’m told...I might find that one interesting, that’s all. Helpful.”

Newt nodded. “I’ll look for it when I’m out tomorrow.”

“Much obliged,” Aziraphale said. 

“Less than a month ‘till the new trial,” Newt said. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, sir.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, shaking his head, “I rather think I do.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to attheborder and runningturnip for beta reading!

The publishing house of Hastur and Ligur did not rank among the more impressive buildings of London, in Aziraphale’s experience. Although it wasn’t a  _ shabby  _ establishment, exactly, the location left a great deal to be desired, and the poorly-lit entryway was decorated, not with marble statues or classical paintings, but a terrarium of sorts containing what appeared to be a large, somewhat ill-tempered, lizard.

“That’ll be Leonard,” said Mary Hodges, rising from her desk to greet him. “Belongs to Mr. Ligur. He’s been here as long as the gentlemen themselves, I believe, longer than I have, certainly. Practically the mascot of the place.”

“I see,” said Aziraphale, raising his eyeglass to peer more closely at the lizard. Not particularly likely that it should hold anything in the way of a clue in its beady gaze, he thought, but he looked it over anyway, while Miss Hodges chattered on about its diet and habits in the background.

He straightened and put the eyeglass away. “I don’t know that I’ve had the pleasure of making your acquaintance,” he said, cutting through Miss Hodges’ stream of information. “I’m Lord Aziraphale Eastgate, you see, and I’m here to see—the  _ gentlemen,  _ as you call them. I do have an appointment, I believe.”

“Oh!” said Miss Hodges, her eyes widening slightly at the presence of Nobility. “Very sorry, my lord, didn’t know who you were, ah, if you’ll follow me right this way…”

“Thank you,” said Aziraphale, and followed accordingly.

Hastur and Ligur were seated together in what was, according to the nameplate at the door, Hastur’s office. They rose at Aziraphale’s entrance, and, after a round of handshakes and introductions, and Aziraphale declining their offer of refreshment, they settled back down into their seats, with Aziraphale sitting at the other side of the table.

“Jolly kind of you to let me come by,” Aziraphale said, and smiled fatuously. He’d found, over the years, that people tended to look at his impeccable manners, manicured hands, and monocle and come to the immediate conclusion that here was a classic upper-class idiot of the Bertie Wooster variety. After an initial struggle with offence at being so misjudged, Aziraphale had realized that, at least for the purposes of interrogation, he was a good deal better off embracing these perceptions rather than fighting against them. 

“Of course,” said Ligur, settling back in his chair. “Dreadful thing to happen to poor Louis. Really awful. One of our best authors, you know.”

“And to have  _ another  _ of your authors accused of the murder,” said Aziraphale, sympathetically. “Rather a blow to your business, I should think.”

“Well,” said Hastur, unconvincingly, “we don’t like to think of business at a time like this.”

“Of course not,” said Aziraphale. “Didn’t mean to imply anything of the sort, my apologies, gents. But—uh—I hope you don’t find it indelicate of me to ask, but  _ do  _ you think Mr. Crowley  _ did  _ kill him?”

“Oh, no,” said Ligur, still more unconvincingly. “No, we don’t like to think such a thing. We’re paying for his defence, you know. Best lawyers money can buy.”

“I’m certain,” said Aziraphale, soothingly. “And, well, I happen to be poking around the matter as well, to see if we can turn up any more facts on what might’ve really happened, so I do thank you for your time.”

“I don’t think there’s much more to the facts than was stated at the trial,” Hastur said. “Louis had a meeting with us on the day of the— _ accident,  _ just to talk about his new book, you know, the manuscript and all that, how it was coming along. We had a bit of a talk about that and then got on to just chatting. Had tea and biscuits—you’ll have heard all about that, yeah?”

“Oh yes,” said Aziraphale. “Just the usual tea and biscuits? From the office kitchen?”

“Well—” said Hastur.

“Tea was usual,” Ligur said, “biscuits were—a gift from a client, weren’t they?”

Hastur nodded. “Forget who.”

“Have you got the tin here, still?”

“You’d have to ask Mary,” Hastur said. “Miss Hodges. She’d know.”

“And the sugar?”

“Kept in the kitchen,” said Ligur. “With the tea. Do we really need to go over all this again? We’ve already told it to the police.”

“Right,” said Aziraphale, “don’t mean to impose, certainly, my apologies for the inconvenience. Ah—and what, exactly, was this meeting with Mr. Ferno about?”

Hastur shifted in his chair. “Just an ordinary discussion of his next book.”

“Ah, yes,” Aziraphale said, “he’d written several for you, hadn’t he?”

“This was his fourth,” Ligur said.

“And they hadn’t been selling so well after  _ Myriads,  _ had they?”

Hastur shrugged. “We never expect that literary stuff to do well.  _ Myriads  _ was a pleasant surprise.”

“But it makes us look good,” Ligur said. “Raises our profile, you know? Wouldn’t want  _ everything  _ to be bestselling pulp crime novels.”

“I suppose not,” said Aziraphale, and found that he was unaccountably offended on Crowley’s behalf. The Virgil Vane novels weren’t high art in any sense, but they were well plotted, with solid prose and sympathetic characters. And they were  _ entertaining,  _ which was a good deal more than could be said for any of Ferno’s work. 

“We were just discussing the terms of the contract,” Ligur said. “Ironing out the business about how many copies to print, how to promote it, all of that. Won’t matter now, of course.”

“You’re not still planning to publish?” Aziraphale asked. “I’d think that a posthumous novel from a murdered author might be something of a smash. Not to be  _ crass,  _ of course.”

“It wasn’t really in a fit state to publish,” Hastur said hastily. “Just a rough draft.”

“Surely it could be polished?” Aziraphale prodded, bending to his instinctive response, in the face of any sort of defensiveness, to pry further. This served him well in interrogations but rather poorly in personal relationships.

“Perhaps eventually,” said Ligur. “But, well—as it happens, all of Louis’ books are selling quite well at the moment. Not just  _ Myriads.  _ We’ve had to order new print runs, as a matter of fact. And Crowley’s—those’ve always been money-makers, but they’re fairly  _ flying  _ off the shelves now.”

“Sounds like you’re doing rather well out of the murder, then,” Aziraphale said, careful to keep his tone jocular. 

Hastur scowled. “For now. But it’ll be killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, won’t it, if Crowley hangs?”

“Oh yes,” Ligur added, “we’d much rather have him alive and writing than otherwise. ‘S why we’ve got him the best defence possible.”

“Magnanimous of you,” said Aziraphale dryly. From  _ we don’t like to think of business at a time like this  _ to acknowledging financial profit from Ferno’s death, then. What a turn. Having got what he wanted from that angle, he pivoted. “Did Mr. Ferno seem at all to be in an unusual mood, when you met with him?” 

“Well,” said Ligur, “depends what you mean by  _ unusual.  _ It’s hard to say what a usual mood would’ve been for Louis. He was...whatsit.”

“Whatsit?” Aziraphale asked, politely. 

“Mercantile,” Ligur said. “Going back and forth a lot, emotionally, or whatnot.”

Aziraphale restrained his immediate impulse to say  _ you mean “mercurial,” I think,  _ and confined himself to nodding. “But, overall,” he continued, “would you say he seemed to be content?”

“I wouldn’t say  _ content,  _ exactly,” Hastur said. 

“Was he upset, then? Angry about something?” Crowley had said  _ he seemed off,  _ about Ferno, and while Aziraphale didn’t think Hastur and Ligur were likely to have been  _ quite  _ as perceptive, it would be useful to hear whether they, too, had seen something wrong with Ferno, or if perhaps in the intervening hours something had occurred, at the pub or elsewhere, to change his mood.

“Not really,” Hastur said. “A little tetchy, maybe.”

“I see,” Aziraphale said. “Did he mention he was going to see Mr. Crowley, afterwards?”

Ligur shook his head. “We didn’t talk about personal matters much. As a general rule.”

“But you were aware of their relationship, yes?” Aziraphale asked. “And its...conclusion?”

“We knew of it, yeah,” Hastur said, tone not quite disapproving but certainly not supportive. “I mean, they were living together, we knew what address the cheques got sent to.”

“And when Louis moved out, we figured  _ something  _ had happened,” Ligur added, “but we didn’t like to ask. Again. Not much for personal matters.”

“If it came down to it,” Aziraphale asked, infusing his tone with idle curiosity, “and you had to let one of them go—if, say, Mr. Crowley had said he wouldn’t work for you any more while you were still publishing Mr. Ferno, or vice versa—which of them would you choose?”

“Well, that wouldn’t  _ happen,”  _ Ligur said, after a moment. “We’ve got contracts, with both of ‘em. They can’t just walk.”

“Right, of course,” Aziraphale said, keeping the irritation out of his voice, “I only meant as a hypothetical. Just as food for thought.” He paused, but neither Ligur nor Hastur seemed inclined to comment further. “Well, doesn’t matter then, of course, just curious.” He stood up. “I say, you wouldn’t mind if I asked your secretary there, Miss Hodges, a few questions, would you? Just get a few more details about the way things operate here?”

“No, go right ahead,” Hastur said. “She’s been with us for years, very dedicated. I hope  _ she’s  _ not a suspect. It’s as we’ve said before, there wasn’t anything that Louis ate that one of us didn’t eat as well, so it really couldn’t have been her anyway. Because  _ we’re  _ not dead, of course,” he said, and laughed.

Aziraphale smiled tightly. “No, of course not,” he said. “Simply need to get the logistics down, that’s all. Little quirk of mine. Read nothing into it, I beg you. And I do thank you for indulging my questions.”

“Of course,” said Hastur, and smiled unpleasantly.

“Anything to help Crowley,” said Ligur.

Aziraphale nodded at both of them and withdrew back into the anteroom. 

Mary Hodges stood to greet him. “All finished, then?”

“Actually,” said Aziraphale, motioning for her to sit down, “I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me, as well.”

“All right,” said Miss Hodges, sounding a bit surprised, but not displeased. She returned to her seat, Aziraphale taking an empty chair opposite her desk. “What can I help you with?”

“You’ve worked here a long time?”

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Hodges. “Simply  _ ages.  _ Seven years now, I should think. Or rather more, I can’t quite remember, let me see, it was a few years after the War…”

Aziraphale let her go on for a bit. There were worse things than a witness who talked too much. One had to be careful, of course, to catch whatever relevant details made it through the flimflam, but get a gossiper going and they’d soon be spilling secrets (theirs and others’) at the slightest provocation.

“You like working here, then?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Hodges. “It’s very steady work, and the authors are generally very pleasant to talk to, never give you any trouble, not like you hear about at some jobs. One of my friends works for a doctor’s office, and  _ she  _ said that she’s had patients who wouldn’t even bother to learn her  _ name…” _

Aziraphale waited patiently through the rest of this irrelevant anecdote, all about poor Deborah and how Dr. Millsley had never  _ really  _ appreciated her. 

“You get to know the authors rather well, do you?” he asked, when she paused for breath.

“We-ell,” said Miss Hodges, dragging it out, “I wouldn’t say I know them  _ well,  _ not all of them, certainly.”

“Did you—do you—know Mr. Crowley?”

Miss Hodges beamed. “Why, of  _ course,  _ that is, his books are just  _ so  _ clever, don’t you think? I mean, one hardly ever sees the answer coming, and then you find out who did it and it seems as though it ought to have been staring you in the face all along! And, personally, well, I wouldn’t call him a  _ nice  _ man, not really, although you wouldn’t expect someone to be, would you, who writes such dreadful murders, not like some of the authors, always with a kind word, but he’s never actually been  _ rude,  _ you know, and I really  _ don’t  _ like to think that he might’ve done it.”

“No,” said Aziraphale, softly. “And Mr. Ferno?”

Mary Hodges’ face changed from pleased recognition to something approaching awe. “Well, yes,  _ everyone  _ knows Mr. Ferno. I understand he was supposed to be something of a genius, from what everyone said about that book, that first one of his. I confess I tried to read it and couldn’t make head nor tail myself. The language wasn’t—well, it wasn’t very  _ clear,  _ you see. Lots of long words when a short one would do just as well, all sorts of confusing ways of saying things that seem to have been quite simple. Although I  _ am  _ sure it’s just as wonderful as everyone says,” she added hastily, “but I expect I simply don’t have the brain for that sort of thing.”

Aziraphale refrained from commenting that he doubted that there were any brains capable of actually enjoying some of Louis Ferno’s later work. “I’m sure that’s not true,” he said instead. “I was in Court, you know, for your testimony, and you struck me as a very clever sort of person, you see.” He judged that perhaps a little flattery wouldn’t go amiss, and while the prevailing wisdom among gentlemen of Aziraphale’s acquaintance was that the surest way to charm a woman was by paying a compliment to her appearance, Aziraphale himself had found that one got a great deal farther by praising her intelligence. (He also had the strong suspicion that any expression of attraction on his part would be highly likely to be deemed mendacious, given that most observers tended to rapidly identify that his own predilections ran in quite another direction.) 

Mary Hodges flushed very slightly. “Oh, well, thank you, m’lord.”

“And to that effect, then,” Aziraphale continued, “I was rather hoping that perhaps, if it isn’t too much bother, and all, that you might be willing to go through the events of Ferno’s visit with me again.”

“All right,” she said doubtfully. “If you think it’d help.”

“Enormously,” Aziraphale assured her. “Now, Mr. Ferno arrived a little before four, I think you said?”

“Yes, just a few minutes to. He wasn’t the early sort. Not that he was  _ late,  _ you know, not like some of the authors, Mr. Crowley, for one, always showing up to appointments ten minutes after they’re supposed to start, annoys Mr. Hastur something dreadful, it does—”

“Yes, yes, thank you,” Aziraphale said, cutting her off gently. He found, however, that his mind caught on the thread of Crowley’s habitual tardiness, cataloguing it in the ever-expanding file of observations on his character. Which, he reflected, was  _ not  _ what he ought to be concentrating on. He was here to get information about the deceased, not the suspect. “And he went directly in to Mr. Hastur’s?”

“Yes, I showed him in. Mr. Ligur was in there already, as well.”

“And you then—”

“Mr. Hastur said ‘Tea for three, then, Mary,’ so I went to go make it, the way I do every afternoon, though sometimes if the office-boy’s here and not off running errands I see if he wants a cup as well, Joe his name is, nice young fellow, not a lick of interest in the authors, though, I must say—”

“But Joe,” Aziraphale said, “wasn’t there that day, was he?”

“No, no. Just the gentlemen. Yes, well, so I went to go make the tea, but as I was leaving Mr. Hastur called after me, ‘Oh, Mary, didn’t I see a tin of biscuits in the kitchen earlier? You might bring those as well.’”

“You don’t generally bring biscuits with the tea, then, I take it?”

“Sometimes, if we’ve got some. But sometimes it’s buns, and once Mr. Ligur decided to go on a slimming program and wouldn’t even take sugar, much less anything else.”

“So it wasn’t an unusual request, then?”

“Not at all.”

“You went into the kitchen, then...”

“Yes, and I made the tea, just the usual sort, from the tin, the police wanted to see it later, you know, ran some test or other, but it was just ordinary tea. And I brought in the teapot with three cups and the jug of milk and the bowl of sugar, and the tin of biscuits, all on the tea tray. And I put them down in front of the gentlemen, and poured out the tea, and then I—”

“Pardon me for interrupting, but did you hand out the teacups, or did the gentlemen take their own?”

Mary Hodges paused a moment in thought. “I handed them out,” she said, decisively. “I remember because I almost spilled a bit on Mr. Ferno, there, and I thought  _ that’s a near miss,  _ Mr. Ferno not being the sort of person to take that thing lightly, you see.”

Aziraphale, whose opinion of Louis Ferno was declining by the minute, nodded. “Thank you. And the sugar?”

“Mr. Ferno said he’d take sugar, and so did Mr. Ligur, since he gave up on the slimming program, said it wasn’t worth the trouble. So I handed each of them the sugar bowl and they put their own in. And then I asked who wanted biscuits, and Mr. Ferno and Mr. Hastur both said they’d take one, Mr. Ligur said no, as he doesn’t like that sort, with the powdered sugar, and the jam in the middle, so I offered the tin to Mr. Hastur and then to Mr. Ferno, and they both took one. And I asked if there was anything else, and Mr. Ligur said ‘No, Mary, thank you,’ so I went back to the kitchen—”

“Did you, then,  _ see  _ Mr. Hastur or Mr. Ferno eat the biscuits, or see any of them drink the tea?”

“Yes,” said Mary Hodges immediately. “I noticed both of them bite into their biscuits, as I was leaving, and of course when I came back around after Mr. Ferno had left, the food was gone. The only one I saw drink tea was Mr. Ligur, though, he went and took a sip as the other two were starting on the biscuits. But the tea was gone as well, when I came back, all three cups. And I washed them all at once, all the things, not being the sort of person to put things off till tomorrow if they can be done today. Which is what I told the police,” she added defensively, “when they came round asking to test the tea things. Oh, they looked at our stock of sugar, and the tea, and they took away the rest of the biscuits that were left in that tin, but the teacups and teapot and plates had all been cleaned and put away.”

“Well, you couldn’t have known,” Aziraphale said reasonably, “you were doing your job very efficiently, I’ve no doubt.”

“Yes,” said Mary Hodges. “Yes, indeed.”

“Now,” said Aziraphale, “is there anything else...is there anything  _ odd,  _ that you noticed that day?”

“What d’you mean by that?”

“Well, did Mr. Ferno, when he came in, seem different from his ordinary self? Angry about something, happy, depressed?”

Mary Hodges thought for a moment. “Not particularly. He didn’t stop to chat, but that’s usual for him, as I said— _ was  _ usual, I suppose—just as businesslike as always.”

“And when he left? Had his mood changed, as far as you could tell?”

“Yes,” she said, slowly. “Yes, he didn’t even bother to say good-bye. Rather stormed out.”

“Would you say angry, then?”

“Frustrated,” said Mary Hodges. “I wouldn’t go so far as  _ angry.  _ But upset, certainly.”

That tracked with what Crowley had said Ferno’s mood had been when he’d arrived at his flat, Aziraphale thought.  _ Off.  _ Not himself. And if he’d seemed normal enough when he’d come into the publishers’, and upset afterwards, then it stood to reason that whatever they’d talked about hadn’t been just an ordinary discussion, and Hastur and Ligur were hiding something. And whatever it was—whether a motive for murder (opportunity was another matter, as it seemed fairly clear that there hadn’t been a chance for anyone to poison the tea things) or an explanation of suicide, Aziraphale needed to find out more.

“Thank you,” he said aloud, and left, to the sound of Mary Hodges bidding him farewell, and the sight of Leonard the lizard’s eyes staring balefully after him.

* * *

“Nothing to report from the pub, I’m afraid,” Newt said, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Went down with Sergeant Shadwell, asked the owner some questions, nothing said that wasn’t said at the trial.”

“I expect having Shadwell there with you went a long way towards that,” Aziraphale said dryly.

“Yes,” Newt admitted. 

“Well, you might try again,” Aziraphale said, “see if you can get in yourself, befriend a staff member or a regular patron, or some such thing. But I’ve got a more pressing matter for you.” He steepled his hands together, leaning forward in his chair. “I need one of our people on the inside at that publishing house. There’s something going on there, and I don’t know whether it’s to do with the murder, but I’d like to find out.”

“Did you have someone particular in mind?” Newt asked.

Aziraphale shook his head. “No, it hasn’t got that far yet. First we need to create an opening. So you’re to find a woman named Mary Hodges, and offer her a position paying...let’s say, one-and-a-half times what an ordinary secretary makes—won’t do to make it too high or she’ll grow suspicious. Then we’ll find someone appropriate to move in. One of the typists.”

Aziraphale employed an extremely extensive staff of typists for someone who preferred his printed material Gutenberg-era. But although they were kept somewhat busy by cataloging his various acquisitions and copying over correspondence, the typists, to a woman, were far more valuable for their eyes and ears than for the speed of their fingers. There were, Aziraphale had realized, quite a number of intelligent women without the opportunity to exercise that intelligence. So he kept them on staff, and called on them when needed, to observe and report in situations that he or Newt couldn’t.

“Very good, sir,” said Newt. 

“That’s all,” Aziraphale said, sitting back. 

“Oh—sir,” Newt said. “I found you a copy of that Crowley novel you wanted.  _ Murder in Mayfair.  _ It’s on the end table by your bed.”

“Thank you,” said Aziraphale.

Newt bobbed his head in what probably was supposed to be a respectful bow, and left.

Aziraphale, ridiculously, waited until he was out of the room to rise from his chair and head into the bedroom. It was idiotic, he thought, to worry about his own servant judging him—particularly when he wasn’t going to be doing anything remotely  _ embarrassing.  _ He merely wished to read  _ Murder in Mayfair  _ as soon as possible. It was probably  _ extremely  _ relevant to the case.

The book was, as Newt had said, atop the stack next to his bed. Aziraphale picked it up and returned to the easy chair. Settling in, he took a sip of his drink, opened the book, and began, eagerly, to read. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks once again to esteemed beta readers attheborder and runningturnip!

_Murder in Mayfair_ was—well. Crowley had said that the aristocratic investigator character who helped Virgil Vane ferret out the location of the stolen helicopter plans wasn’t _actually_ based on Aziraphale, hadn’t he? So, then, when Lord Marshfield accidentally revealed a key clue in front of the villain, when he mucked up keeping watch because he was too distracted by a pretty maid, when his entire role seemed to be appearing just stupid enough to show off how clever Virgil Vane was—there was no reason, no reason at all, for Aziraphale to think that any of this reflected on _him._ And, he told himself sternly, still turning the matter over in his mind the next morning over breakfast, even if that _was_ the way Crowley saw him, as a too-wealthy fool whose presence was only barely tolerated by the _real_ investigators, wasn’t that the way he _wanted_ people to see him? Hadn’t he been trying, in this very investigation, to appear as silly as possible in his interview with Hastur and Ligur? It was a _good_ thing that Crowley had underestimated his intelligence. There was certainly no point in wondering if he’d changed his mind since.

“My lord?” Newt asked, in a voice that suggested he was expecting a reprimand (which Aziraphale thought most unfair, as he very rarely gave them). “I’ve offered a position to Mary Hodges, as you asked, but she—well, she won’t take it.”

“Really?” Aziraphale said, frowning. “Go ahead and increase the pay, then, expense isn’t an issue. Whatever it takes to get her away.”

Newt shook his head. “She said it wasn’t a matter of pay.”

“What _was_ it a matter of, then?”

Newt shrugged. “She wouldn’t say, m’lord. Not even to me.”

Aziraphale sighed. “Well, keep trying, anyway, won’t you? I’ll poke around a bit if I have time, try to see whether I can pin down what makes her tick.”

“Very well, m’lord,” said Newt, and hesitated.

“What is it?”

“Well, it’s only—I looked at your appointment-book for today, and it’s completely blank. Did you forget—that is, aren’t you planning to investigate today?”

“I am,” said Aziraphale. “I, ah, I’ve arranged to go back to gaol. To see Cr—the prisoner.”

Newt, who had not yet mastered the impassive expression that is the hallmark of a well-trained manservant, frowned. “Weren’t you just there last week? My lord,” he added quickly. 

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, hearing the defensiveness in his own voice—this was exactly why he hadn’t put the visit in the appointment book in the first place— “I’ve got a few follow-up questions, that’s all.”

Newt nodded, clearly realizing he’d overstepped somehow. “Of course, that’s—that makes perfect sense.”

“I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” Aziraphale said irritably, and immediately regretted it when Newt flinched backward. “I am sorry,” he said, in calmer tones, inhaling deeply. “I’m only—I’m rather frustrated with the case, that’s all. I don’t mean to snap at you.”

“Not at all, my lord,” Newt said apologetically. “I oughtn’t to have pried.”

Aziraphale smiled tightly. “No matter.”

Newt bobbed his head in acknowledgement and left.

Aziraphale sighed and looked down at the remainder of his breakfast. The eggs had gone cold, he realized, taking an exploratory bite, and he found that he wasn’t particularly hungry anymore. Something was roiling his stomach, some tension or anxiety, and he sat back and tried to look at the matter dispassionately. There were twenty-four days remaining until Crowley’s new trial. Not much room for error there, and he’d just received a fairly significant setback in one of his avenues of investigation. It was enough to set anyone on edge, he thought. But—if he were being honest with himself, at least part of his sour mood had been caused by _Murder in Mayfair_ and the pall it cast over his upcoming interview with Crowley. He’d enjoyed talking to him, the last time they’d met. It had been a remarkably pleasant conversation, under the circumstances, and he’d been actually anticipating their next meeting; looking forward to it, in fact. And seeing himself (even if it wasn’t really him) portrayed in such an unflattering light had left something of a sour taste in his mouth. 

It was just as well, he told himself sternly, standing up and abandoning his cold eggs to the breakfast-table. This wasn’t precisely a social call, and it wouldn’t do to be thinking of it as one.

* * *

Crowley looked worse than last time, Aziraphale noticed immediately. He couldn’t _actually_ have grown noticeably thinner in the last few days—surely not—but his clothes seemed to hang off of him in looser fashion than they had before (not that Aziraphale had been cataloguing tightness of clothing). His hair was disheveled, and his face was drawn, with the dark circles and creased lines of someone who hadn’t been sleeping well. 

Aziraphale was uncomfortably aware of how he must appear in contrast, his own obvious health and strength, his impeccably tailored clothing, the restful face of someone with no problems to speak of. (Only, that wasn’t strictly true, was it? He hadn’t been sleeping well himself, these past few days, and the uneaten eggs he’d left behind this morning could testify to his lack of appetite. Still, he thought it nearly impossible that he could look as wan and weary as Crowley did. It was, after all, a very different thing to toss and turn in a featherbed than on a hard cot.)

Crowley smiled, though, at Aziraphale’s entrance, and his face seemed to lose some of its worry. “I’ve got to say,” he said, as Aziraphale took the chair opposite him, “I didn’t expect you back quite so soon.”

“Ah—yes,” Aziraphale said, “dreadfully sorry if it’s a bother, I’ve simply got some follow-up questions to ask you, you see, and as time is of the essence in these matters I do hope I’m not imposing on you too much to call on you twice in such quick succession.”

“Well,” Crowley said, wryly, “I can’t exactly tell the footman not to admit you.”

Aziraphale flinched. “Of course not. I’ll—be brief, then, so as not to—”

Crowley shook his head. “No, no, please, ah—please do stay as long as you need. As long as you like. I don’t get much in the way of stimulating conversation around here.”

“I should think not,” Aziraphale said dryly. “Very well, then, I’ll do my best to stimulate.”

Crowley flushed slightly. “So, er—what can I help you with?”

“To begin with,” Aziraphale said, “I wanted to apprise you of the latest developments in the case. I’ve been to see your publishers—Ferno’s publishers—and while they don’t, as yet, seem to have had either motive or opportunity, the tea he had there _was_ one of the only meals we know might’ve been a possibility for poisoning, time-wise, and I did get the sense that they were hiding something.”

“Hmm,” Crowley said, and frowned thoughtfully. “Well, I mean, I think I’ve made it clear that Louis was a right tit to work with, so there’s your motive, I suppose, though I don’t know that Hastur and Ligur would kill someone just to get out of having to edit his latest slop. At least, if I were writing it, I’d consider that a bit weak.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale agreed, “and why _now,_ when presumably he’s been difficult to work with all along?”

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t _like_ Hastur or Ligur, don’t trust ‘em as far as I can throw ‘em, not with the tricks they pulled on me negotiating my last contract, but I doubt they’d have killed Louis. I think they were always hoping he’d have another _Myriads,_ light up the literary world again.”

“Mm,” said Aziraphale, and then, “Sorry, the tricks they played on you with your contract?”

Crowley sighed ruefully. “Yeah. Really can’t blame anyone but myself, when you get down to it. They signed me on for six more Virgil Vane books and I didn’t read through the fine print, and, well, they’d changed the royalty percentages and hoped I wouldn’t notice. Which I didn’t.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Surely there’s some way to get out of it—”

Crowley shook his head. “It’s like signing your soul away, with those fellows. Language is airtight. I even had a lawyer friend look it over, and they said nothing doing, I wasn’t getting out of that deal short of the apocalypse. Only good thing is, you know, it’s just as solid on their side, apparently. So if people suddenly decide they don’t want to buy books from notorious murderer Anthony Crowley, Hastur and Ligur can’t cut me off with a sou and say so long. They’ve got to publish, on the agreed terms.”

“As it happens,” Aziraphale said, “your books are selling better than ever. Yours and Ferno’s, actually. I’d imagine out of sympathy for him, and—well, a sort of morbid curiosity about you.”

“Hooray,” Crowley said flatly. “Unfortunately, as it happens, you very much _cannot_ take it with you, and although the prospect of finally topping the bestseller list as the hangman’s noose tightens around my neck does have its appeal, I really _can’t_ say it’d be worth it.”

“No,” Aziraphale said, “no, of course not. I didn’t mean to suggest—”

“Although, murder-to-spur-book-sales _is_ an interesting concept,” Crowley said thoughtfully. “Don’t mind if I jot that down, do you? For the next Virgil Vane novel. Well. If there _is_ a next Virgil Vane novel.”

“There will be,” Aziraphale said firmly. “I do not countenance any other point of view. And yes, of course, you are welcome to—that is, of course you may use any ideas prompted from our conversations in your writing. I would be honored.”

Crowley shifted uncomfortably. “Uh,” he said, “about that, I remember last time I mentioned to you that the lord character in _Murder in Mayfair_ was...a bit inspired by something I’d read about you?” 

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “I believe I do recall that.”

“Well,” Crowley said, “it occured to me, after you left, that the fellow’s a bit of a _fool,_ really, and I wouldn’t want you to think that it reflected—what I mean is, I wrote that before I’d ever met you, ever thought I _would_ meet you. I didn’t even think, you know, ‘this character’s a parody of Lord Aziraphale Eastgate,’ I just thought, ‘hmm, peer of the realm helping out with a case, that’s something to keep in mind.’ And I don’t know if you, if you ended up reading it, after our talk, um, maybe I’m being presumptuous to think you would, but—”

“I did read it,” Aziraphale cut in quietly. “I did.”

Crowley shut his mouth and stared at him, dismayed. “I’m sorry, then,” he said, after a moment. “But, obviously, it’s not you, it’s nothing like you—”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, feeling as though he were somewhere very far away. “No, I saw that at once. Rather funny, I thought the whole thing was, as a matter of fact. Good for a laugh.”

Crowley didn’t look as though he’d been convinced, but he said nothing.

“At any rate,” Aziraphale said, “I seem to remember you saying you weren’t in financial straits.”

Crowley grinned. “Nah, not at all. Books were selling well before this whole business, and I have plenty to get by. I mean. Not like _you_ do, I’d imagine. What with your…”

“With my family,” Aziraphale said. “Yes. Well. I can’t deny that I’m in a rather enviable position, when it comes to that.”

“Brother of the Duke of Arcadia,” Crowley said, in a neutral tone that bordered on distaste. “Must be nice.”

“I _am_ fortunate,” Aziraphale repeated, “of course, it does come with a fair few responsibilities, you know, but, all in all, can’t complain, can I?”

“Can’t you?”

“No,” Aziraphale said, “really, I’m—I’m very lucky. My brother’s got all the, the burden of the title, and I get all the fun of the family name without having to worry about marrying or producing an heir or doing anything remotely respectable, really. Indeed,” he added, laughing a bit nervously, “sometimes I think the whole lot might just wash their hands of me, decide I’m not worth keeping round the place. Now that my brother’s got a son, and all, and I’m not even needed as the spare in the jolly old line of succession. So I can just—cavort about with whomever I like.”

“Can you, now?” Crowley asked, and raised his eyebrows.

Aziraphale swallowed. “Yes. Yes. But—enough about me, I, um, I _did_ have a question for you, you know.”

Crowley leaned back in his chair. “And?”

“Mary Hodges,” Aziraphale said. “The secretary at Hastur and Ligur’s. I’m trying to...well, influence her, about something, and she doesn’t seem to be responding exactly as I’d like to a _pecuniary_ motive, so I was hoping that, perhaps, seeing as you know her personally, you might be able to tell me a bit about what she likes. Values. Finds important.”

Crowley’s forehead creased in thought. “Well, I can’t say I know her as well as I probably ought,” he admitted. “Not much of a one for back-chat with the staff, you know.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, “she did mention that.”

“Oh?” Crowley’s eyes grew bright with interest, and his mouth twitched in a smile. “Asking around about me, were you?”

Aziraphale, for some reason, blushed. “Just—general questioning.” 

“Right,” said Crowley. “Well. Anyway. If I recall correctly, she’s interested in Spiritualism. You know, contacting the souls of those who’ve passed on, trying to find messages from Beyond, all that nonsense.”

“Really, now?”

“Yeah,” Crowley said, a touch derisively. “Stupid stuff, if you ask me.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Aziraphale said mildly. “I mean, I daresay anything involving belief in the unseen seems ridiculous to _someone,_ and yet one doesn’t go around telling members of the good old C of E that they’re being delusional.”

“Doesn’t one?” Crowley asked, his face again lighting up in amusement. 

“Well,” Aziraphale said, laughing a little, “at least, _I_ don’t, unless I want to get written up in the papers the next day for attacking a fundamental British institution despite being myself rather a relic of what many might call a bygone era. And then, you see, it’s telephone calls from my sister-in-law asking me who I think I am, exactly, to drag down the family name like this, and I’ve got to say the whole mess simply isn’t worth it. So I keep my opinions to myself, mostly. Religion, politics, whatever it is.”

“Huh,” Crowley said, thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Well, I wouldn’t expect you would,” Aziraphale said. “Most people don’t have to. Of course, now that you’ve attained some notoriety yourself, on account of this whole sorry business, I _would_ recommend that you refrain from making any controversial statements in public.”

“Ah yes,” Crowley said, “I’ll keep that in mind, next time I find myself in public.” He gestured expansively at their surroundings. “Doesn’t seem particularly likely, at present.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Aziraphale said sharply. 

Crowley, who had been half-laughing at himself, shifted forward, his face growing serious. “Just a bit of gallows humour, that’s all. In the most literal sense.”

“Well, I don’t find it very funny,” Aziraphale said, and immediately regretted it. “That is, I can’t have you going around implying that I _won’t_ solve this and have you out and free, name cleared of all suspicion. Terrible for my self-esteem, you know. But, in any case,” he continued, trying to regain the thread of their earlier conversation— _why_ did he continually find himself slipping into tangents in these interviews, entirely personal and irrelevant tangents— “Mary Hodges is interested in Spiritualism. That’s—that’s good. I can work with that. Yes, that’s very helpful indeed.”

“Glad to have been a help, then,” Crowley said.

“There’s—another thing,” Aziraphale said, cautiously. “I, um, I’ve been trying to go, or get one of my people to go, everywhere that Ferno went the night he died. The publishers’, the pub, his flat...and yours. And, well, I thought that I’d ask, out of courtesy, whether you’d much mind it if I went over to your place and poked around a bit.”

“Don’t you just need to ask the police to let you in?”

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale admitted, “that is, they’ll let me in, I’ve asked already, but I wanted—it’s rather an intimate sort of thing, going through a person’s living space, that’s all, and I wouldn’t, ah, want to make you at all uncomfortable by my doing so.”

Crowley’s eyes widened a fraction, and he shifted in his chair. “Oh,” he said, after a moment, seeming to regain some of his composure and returning to his earlier nonchalant manner. “Yeah. That’s fine, yeah, no problem at all. Nothing to hide, me. Open book. Pure as the driven snow—well, not _exactly,_ I suppose, but in terms of, y’know, stuff-to-hide-ness.” 

“I see,” Aziraphale said. “Very good, then, I only wanted to ask.”

Crowley nodded. “Oh, that’s—it’s, uh, it’s nice of you, really, I just wasn’t expecting it, is all. I’ve got used to not much privacy, these past few months. Forgot, a bit, what it feels like to have some.”

Aziraphale’s throat felt, suddenly, rather full. “That’s—I’m dreadfully sorry.”

Crowley shrugged. “Eh. On the list of ‘disadvantages to being tried for murder,’ that ranks pretty low.”

“All the same,” said Aziraphale. “Which—there’s not anything else I can do for you, is there? I can’t imagine it’s comfortable here, but, if there’s anything I could bring you to read, or…”

Crowley, who’d transferred his gaze to the table, looked up again. “Oh—you’re planning to come again, then?”

Aziraphale realized abruptly that he had, somewhere in the middle of the conversation, developed the firm and definite intention of calling on Crowley again, probably on a regular basis, until the case was concluded. He hadn’t been _aware_ that he’d made the decision, but, once made, it felt fairly impossible to withdraw from it. “If I may,” he said, weakly. “I of course may need to ask you more questions, as things come up in the course of my inquiries, and then, I thought you might like to be updated on the progress of the case, and also—” _and also you’re clearly miserable here, God knows it’s presumptuous of me to think that my visits add any spark of light to your stay, but if by some chance they do—_ “I could bring you things,” he finished, lamely, aloud. “Like books. Or—whatever you’d like. As I said.”

Crowley smiled, suddenly, blindingly bright. “I’d like that,” he said. “And—if it’s really not a bother—if you’re going to my flat anyway, I’d be happy to have any old tome you can find lying about. Well. Not my _own_ stuff, I beg you. Or Louis’.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said. “I’d be delighted.”

“Thank you,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale shook his head. “Don’t thank me,” he said, as he had the last time they’d met. “Not for that. Not for anything. Wait till you’re a free man. Thank me then.”

* * *

“Spiritualism,” Aziraphale pronounced aloud, drawing a confused look from an elderly lady as he walked past on the way back to his flat. Yes, spiritualism was just the ticket—if Mary Hodges could be swayed by a convincing medium and a few well-placed hints as to future career direction, there’d be nothing in the way of getting one of the typists in to have a look about. And it _had_ been a good idea to visit Crowley, after all, it hadn’t just been an excuse to have a friendly conversation, he’d gotten _actually_ helpful information out of it.

And of course it was a _very_ good idea, then, to go back to gaol and see him again, because who knew what other tidbits Aziraphale might turn up in doing so? Yes, very well, Aziraphale _enjoyed_ talking to him, but that was scarcely a reason _not_ to do so. Especially when it seemed to Aziraphale (whose powers of observation were, after all, considerable) that Crowley rather enjoyed it as well. There could be nothing but good to be gained from raising the prisoner’s spirits, after all.

It occurred to Aziraphale, then, that Crowley’s flat was in fact not so very far out of his way, and it would be perfectly possible to nip in there and take a look around, now that he’d gotten permission. So, without stopping to debate it further with himself, he spun on his heel and proceeded briskly down the appropriate streets, reaching the address he’d been given by the police.

He had perhaps been expecting a more elegant sort of building, though there was, he reflected, climbing an ill-lit and cobwebbed staircase, little enough reason why. It was clear enough that the literary set that Crowley and Ferno had run about with didn’t place much emphasis on the aesthetics of their surroundings, and he’d grown used to seeing Crowley himself in the rather shabby environment of a prison cell, but all the same, there was something in his manner or character that had given Aziraphale the sense that this was a person who preferred things elegant and clean.

The policeman outside Crowley’s door let him in easily enough—Shadwell had given orders that he was to be admitted to any of the crime scenes currently being blocked off from public entrance, and Aziraphale walked into the flat still struggling to reconcile his own perceptions with the reality of the building.

This turned out to be completely unnecessary. The interior of Crowley’s flat was completely different from its dingy surroundings. Oh, it was still dark, the windows curtained in heavy black, but Aziraphale’s instinct had been correct—it was remarkably, immaculately _clean._ Almost unnervingly so, indeed, as though it were a show-room and not an actual home. This was, Aziraphale realized, the flat where Crowley had lived with Ferno, before they’d split, and he wondered whether it had looked so inhumanly tidy then, or whether Crowley had gone through, afterwards, scrubbing and polishing away every reminder of his lover, determined to make a fresh start for himself.

 _I like things neat,_ he’d said, in Court, when asked about washing the coffee things after Ferno’s visit, and perhaps that had come from the same impulse—to allow no trace of Ferno, even on such a small thing as a mug.

Aziraphale proceeded slowly through the flat, searching for any clue, any sign that might possibly help unravel what had happened to Louis Ferno that night. The oppressive cleanliness of the place left him not particularly sanguine as to results, but he looked around anyway (the police had already taken whatever fingerprints there might have been). 

There was a door off of the kitchen, and Aziraphale, after going through the cabinets and canisters, opened it, half-expecting only a closet.

He found, instead, a room, every bit as well-kept as the ones before it, but holding a great deal more vitality—because it was filled, almost to bursting, with a remarkable array of plants. Aziraphale, not being much for botany, was ill-able to identify what precisely they might be, beyond “leafy” and “green,” but he could tell that the plants had been arranged with incredible care and precision, their placement the result of careful planning rather than haphazard growth.

He took hold of a leaf, and rubbed it between his fingers, thinking.

“Mullins?” he called out, and the constable from outside scurried in.

“My lord?”

“Has someone been looking after these plants, the past few months?” They must have, he realized, for them to still be alive, but a closer examination revealed that some had begun to develop brown speckles, here and there, or to wilt. 

Mullins nodded. “Yes, my lord, we’ve had whoever’s on duty water ‘em each day. We don’t know much about them, though, sorry to say, so as to proper care, and pruning, and what have you…” He trailed off.

“I see,” said Aziraphale. “I’m going to arrange for someone to come by regularly,” he said, decisively. “An expert, I don’t know, gardener. I’ll find someone. Sergeant Shadwell will have the name, and you’re to let them in when they come. These ought to be _properly_ looked after,” he said.

Mullins looked slightly confused, but didn’t argue, just said “Yes, my lord.”

“That’ll be all,” Aziraphale said, his mind wandering to how best to find an appropriate caretaker—a good task for Newt, that—and Mullins returned to his post at the door, leaving Aziraphale once again alone in the flat.

He left the plant room, closing the door carefully behind him, and proceeded into the bedroom, which was every bit as empty of all individuality as the rooms before. Most of the space was taken up by the bed itself, large and modern and (of course) perfectly made, but there was space enough for a desk in the corner—where Crowley, presumably, wrote—and several bookshelves lining the walls.

It was to these that Aziraphale went, after a cursory glance through the papers on the desk—nothing at all revealing, only a few sheets of what was apparently the novel Crowley’d been working on before Ferno’s death, the one he’d bought the arsenic for. He discovered an eclectic library, volumes ranging from the presumably bought-for-research _(Poisons and Toxins: A Comprehensive Guide,_ which Aziraphale owned himself and had in fact been asked to contribute a foreword to the new edition of), to the wholly expected (a robust selection of Wilkie Collins and Sheridan Le Fanu), to the more surprising ( _Paradise Lost,_ in fine bound leather; John Donne’s Holy Sonnets; a complete set of Jane Austen). Aziraphale spent several pleasant and informative minutes looking through them, making mental notes as to what might be fruitful conversation topics for his next visit.

Which, he reminded himself, was why he was here— _not_ out of idle curiosity, but to select some books to bring along. He dithered for some time, not wanting to choose anything too heavy or dark (Crowley hardly needed to be reminded of death or prisons at the present moment, and _Little Dorrit, Crime and Punishment,_ and _The Count of Monte Cristo_ were all dismissed accordingly), but also reluctant to pick something too frothy and insubstantial, and be thought shallow. 

He settled, at last, on _Howards End,_ a collection of P.G. Wodehouse stories _,_ and Suetonius’ _Twelve Caesars—_ plenty there, hopefully, to entertain and divert.

He bid farewell to Mullins, on his way out, and made his way home, arms weighted with books and mind whirring furiously with plans for the next few days. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks once again to attheborder and runningturnip for beta reading!

Aziraphale had met Marjorie Potts, _alias_ Madame Tracy, while investigating a case a few years back. It had involved a Peer of the Realm, some compromising letters, and—at the end of it all—an extremely wealthy cat. Miss Potts herself had been effusively grateful for Aziraphale’s efforts in getting the matter resolved with minimal damage to her professional reputation, and had stated repeatedly that, “If you ever need anything, dearie, here’s my card, come by anytime.”

Aziraphale had taken the card out of both politeness and pragmatism—though he hadn’t, at the time, foreseen a need for any of Miss Potts’ varied services, he also knew that there was no telling when such things would come in handy.

So he entered the slightly-cramped quarters of Madame Tracy’s establishment heartily congratulating himself on his forethought, and soundly smacked his head on the doorway while doing so.

“Careful there,” Tracy said, wincing sympathetically. “That’ll leave a nasty bruise.”

“Is that an official prediction?” Aziraphale asked, sinking into a many-cushioned chair and rubbing at the sore spot.

“Just common sense, m’lord,” Tracy said. “No spirits necessary. Now,” she continued, settling back into her own seat, “what brings you here, after all this time? Need a spot of clairvoyance?”

“Not precisely,” said Aziraphale. “I was—you will forgive me if this is unpardonably rude, but I was rather hoping you might be able to fake a seance for me.”

Tracy raised her eyebrows. “That’s a bold thing to suggest,” she said, tone light. 

“It is,” Aziraphale admitted.

“Taking advantage of my psychic gifts to defraud someone—that’s not a small matter.”

“I would not wish you to do anything that you deemed immoral, of course,” Aziraphale said carefully. He _liked_ Tracy, when he’d met her before; he’d found, at the time, her coy insistence on being an actual medium to be rather diverting. 

But now—with an imaginary clock in his head that hadn’t stopped ticking since the day of Crowley’s trial—he felt more annoyed than amused by Tracy’s demurral.

“And I shouldn’t want you to feel as though your livelihood were being put at risk,” he added. “So of course I would provide ample compensation—”

Tracy shook her head. “No, no, I’m not after your money, m’lord. You helped me out of a jam, it’d be my honour to help you in return.”

“You’ll do it, then?”

Tracy’s face, which had been amused, turned worried. “Begging your pardon, but you sound awfully anxious about this. This _is_ for a case, isn’t it? I assumed, when you said—but if you’re _personally_ in trouble—”

“No, no,” Aziraphale assured her. “No, you’re quite correct, it’s for a case. Nothing personal about it at all.”

“Oh,” said Tracy, not looking quite convinced.

Aziraphale sighed. He was going to have to tell her what the situation was in any event, so there wasn’t much point dancing around the matter, was there? “It’s the Crowley murder case, actually. The novelist?”

“Oh yes,” Tracy said. “Poison, wasn’t it?”

“Arsenic,” Aziraphale confirmed. “Only, you see, it wasn’t him.”

“Mmm,” said Tracy, thoughtfully. “His picture was in the paper, I recall. Not a bad-looking fellow.”

Aziraphale felt himself flush. “I don’t know what you’re implying—”

“Oh, nothing,” Tracy said. “And of course I’ll do it, only too happy to help you out. Now, what _exactly_ can I do for you?”

* * *

Marjorie Potts considered herself a woman of strong moral character. While those morals might, perhaps, run in a slightly different direction than those generally espoused by Society at large, they _were_ morals, all the same. For instance, she knew quite well that she had no psychic gifts whatsoever, and that every message delivered from a loved one from beyond the grave was so much bunkum, but it made people _happy,_ after all, to think that their deceased friends and family members were in a better place, and thinking kindly of them. And if those people were willing to pay her for the service of providing that happiness, wasn’t that a perfectly upstanding vocation? (The exchange of money for pleasure was, in general, an area where she had extensive experience, and just because she’d shifted business models a bit with age didn’t mean that it wasn’t the same principle, underneath.)

What this meant, however, was that Miss Potts—or, as she thought of herself at present, Madame Tracy—was generally in the habit of telling her customers what they _wanted_ to hear. But according to Lord Aziraphale, bless his clever heart, her goal in this was precisely the opposite. Her—target, if you wished to call it that, the object of her machinations, was, Aziraphale had said, likely to be somewhat resistant to the intended message.

Still, one had to keep one’s hand in with a challenge every now and then, didn’t one?

The first step, of course, was making contact, and after scouting out the relevant address, Tracy settled herself in at a tea-shop across the street to wait for her quarry.

At precisely 5:47 p.m., she paid her bill, exited the tea-shop, and walked, doing her best to seem like a slightly dotty, highly respectable middle-aged woman, directly into another person.

“Oh _dear,”_ said Tracy, and fell down, careful to land on the softer parts of her anatomy (she might owe Lord Aziraphale a favour, but there was such a thing as going too far). 

“Are you all right?” the other half of the collision asked.

Tracy looked up into Mary Hodges’ concerned face. _Perfect._

“Ooh, I’m not certain,” she said, wincing theatrically. “My shoulder’s gone a bit funny.”

“Oh no,” said Miss Hodges, and reached a hand down. “There you are, now—”

Tracy groaned, just this side of overdramatic, and took it, putting the full force of her weight on Miss Hodges, who staggered backwards a bit as Tracy rose.

“Thanks ever so,” she said, letting go. “Oh— _ow—_ ” She clutched at her shoulder.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Miss Hodges said dubiously. 

“Don’t you think so?” Tracy widened her eyes in her most calculatingly innocent manner.

“No,” said Miss Hodges, and took hold of Tracy’s (supposedly) unharmed arm. “I live just over here; won’t you come in and have a rest? I can take a look at your shoulder, there, see if it’ll be all right. I was a nurse during the War, you know, still remember a thing or two…”

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” Tracy said, casting her gaze downward. 

“Nonsense,” said Miss Hodges robustly. “No such thing. Come along, now—”

She steered Tracy, who made another token protest before submitting, into the block of flats she’d been watching from across the street.

The building, Tracy noted, glancing around as they passed through the foyer and up a flight of stairs, was eminently _respectable,_ and nothing more—the sort of place, in short, that a single woman of good character and modest means _would_ live. Tracy had a great deal of experience with such women in her capacity as a medium. They tended to have one of two distinct attitudes in regard to Spiritualism: either strong skepticism on the surface, but with the strong desire to believe simmering underneath; or a more open fanaticism towards all things supernatural. 

Mary Hodges, Tracy realized, as they stepped into her flat, was the second type. The place was decorated with more occult paraphernalia than Tracy’s own parlor—but where Tracy’s interior design tended towards the bright and rose-hued (if one wanted one’s clients to be satisfied with their readings, it couldn’t _hurt_ to have them seeing the world through a particular colour of glass), Miss Hodges’ was surprisingly _dark._ There were a fair number of symbols Tracy recognized—was that a pentagram in the corner?—and a few more that she didn’t. 

Tracy allowed herself to be deposited in Miss Hodges’ easy chair—nothing demonic about _that,_ at least _—_ and began swiftly to reconsider her approach. She’d wangled her way in here in order to scope out the flat, glean a sense of its owner’s personality, and find some evidence for who might, possibly, be a good candidate to speak to Miss Hodges from beyond the grave. A former lover was best, of course, and her quarry was of an age to have lost someone in the War, but a quick glance around the sitting room revealed no sign of photographs or mementoes. There was always, of course, the books—people tended to have a volume or two inscribed from a departed relative—but now, looking at the clear evidence of which direction Miss Hodges’ interests seemed to lie in, Tracy decided that another tack might be in order.

Miss Hodges, who had withdrawn, came bustling back in with an aspirin bottle and a glass of water. “Let’s look at you now, ducky,” she said, picking up Tracy’s arm and examining it with an efficiency that belied her manner. “Well,” she said, after a minute, “it doesn’t seem anything’s broken or sprained, now, so that’s a piece of good luck for you. Not even any bruising that I can see, though that might sprout up later, of course.”

“That’s a relief,” Tracy said. “I do believe it’s already starting to feel a bit better.” She flexed her arm. “Yes—look, good as new.”

“Well, now, I don’t know about _that,”_ Miss Hodges said repressively. “You’d better take something for the pain, and be gentle with it for the next few days, but it ought to be right as rain after that.”

“Thank you,” said Tracy, and took the offered tab. “Really too kind—”

“Oh, no,” said Miss Hodges, waving a hand. “No trouble at all.”

“It’s very kind of you,” Tracy repeated. “Do let me repay you, somehow—”

“I don’t—”

“I insist,” said Tracy, firmly, and drew a card out of her pocketbook. “Just take my card, at least, dearie, come by for a complimentary reading if you’d fancy it, I owe you that much.”

Miss Hodges took the card, eyes sparking with interest. “You’re a medium?”

Tracy simpered a bit. “I do access the World Beyond, yes. You are...a believer, yourself?”

For a moment, she feared she’d gone too far, played too stupid—surely no one could see the inside of Mary Hodges’ flat and come away thinking her a skeptic.

But Miss Hodges just nodded eagerly, and said, “Oh, yes, I’ve been to _several_ seances, you know, and I _have_ been told I have something of an _affinity_ for spirits…”

_I bet you have,_ Tracy thought. “Yes, I thought from the beginning I noted a distinct open-ness within you, you know. Not everyone is so...receptive.”

“Not everyone is so _enlightened,”_ Miss Hodges said, dismissively. “I’ve tried to tell my friends, there’s so much more to life if one only looks beyond the veil, that the mysteries of the spirit world are just _waiting_ to be discovered, but, unfortunately—”

“Many people _are_ like that,” Tracy agreed. “And, of course, when it comes to the _darker_ aspects of such things—”

“Yes?”

“Well, the less they understand, you know.”

“Precisely!” cried Miss Hodges. “Now, I’m a Christian woman—”

“Of course, of course—”

“But I _don’t_ believe there’s anything immoral in allowing oneself to explore the—well, the _other_ side of things, as it were.”

“I understand you perfectly,” Tracy said. “And I quite agree.”

“Now, I haven’t had any, ah, any luck, _personally,_ with accessing that end of things, but I _do_ think that perhaps it’s just a matter of being more open, and continuing to reach inside oneself, don’t you? I saw this _lovely_ medium a few months back, really a very understanding sort of woman, and _she_ said that if I only kept coming that we could make _real_ progress on delving into that end of things.”

_Well, of course,_ Tracy thought, _and she can make real progress on filling up her bank account._ “I myself,” she said, coyly, “have long been trying to contact...similar forces.”

“Oh, my,” said Miss Hodges, with evident glee. 

“Do come by,” said Tracy, tapping the card she’d given Miss Hodges with one finger. “I’d be _so_ very curious to see what we could discover together, you know.”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” said Miss Hodges. “Ah—” she looked down at the card— “Madame Tracy. _Very_ pleased to make your acquaintance, I’m sure.”

“Likewise,” said Tracy. “Miss—”

“Hodges, Mary Hodges, do call me Mary, though.” 

“Mary, then. I’d best be on my way, now,” Tracy said, getting up from the chair and remembering to rub at her shoulder as though it had in fact been hurt. “Do come and see me, though, really, I should be _delighted.”_

“Yes,” said Mary, showing her to the door, “yes, I think I shall.”

* * *

_Lord A. —_

_This note to say that I have made contact with what you will I hope allow me to refer to as The Target, and am pleased to report that she seems to have taken my bait Hook, Line, and Sinker! I am of course aware that Time is Of the Essence in this matter, but I did not wish to push too hard at first acquaintance. However I do believe I have imbued The Target with curiosity, and I now have a very good sense of how best to accomplish our Design._

_I shall update you accordingly once she has visited._

_All best,_

_M. T. Potts_

In the waiting area of the gaol, Aziraphale turned the note over and over again in his hands, worrying at the paper slightly with his fingernails. It was too much to expect, he told himself firmly, that Tracy should manage to lure Mary Hodges away from her post on a single day’s acquaintance, he’d known perfectly well this would take some time to implement. Yet, he thought grimly, there were just over two weeks remaining until Crowley’s new trial, and after all it might turn out that Hastur and Ligur had something rather less than murder to hide. And then where would he be?

“Lord Aziraphale Eastgate?” The guard had entered without him noticing. “You can go in now.”

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said, stood up, and was halfway across the room before remembering the books that he’d brought for Crowley were still on the bench. “Oh—pardon,” he said, “I’ll just—”

“Course, m’lord,” said the guard, neutrally, and Aziraphale bustled back to the bench, gathering the volumes up in his arms and giving the guard a little wave before passing through the doorway, into the room he remembered from his previous visits.

Crowley was already there, seated and waiting, fingers drumming on the tabletop with what appeared to be nervous energy.

At Aziraphale’s entrance, he jolted a bit in his seat, as though he meant to stand up in greeting and remembered suddenly that he wasn’t allowed. “Hello,” he said, settling back down.

“Hello,” Aziraphale replied, depositing his cargo on the table and himself in the chair. “I’ve, ah. Brought you some reading material.”

Crowley reached for the books eagerly, picking them up one by one and turning them over in his hands. “You went to my flat, then?” he asked, flipping through _Twelve Caesars._

“I did,” Aziraphale said. 

“Well?” Crowley asked, still seemingly absorbed in Suetonius. “What’d you think, then?”

“Very neat,” Aziraphale said, honestly. “And your plants are, they’re—”

“Probably half-dead by now, I’d guess,” Crowley said, looking up from the book at last. “Though, you know, I’ve been trying not to dwell.”

“I couldn’t tell, really,” Aziraphale admitted, “but I _did_ notice a few spots. The constable on duty said they _have_ been watering them every day—”

_“All_ of them?” Crowley nearly yelped. 

The guard rapped warningly on the glass. 

“I take it they shouldn’t be doing that,” Aziraphale said dryly.

“They damn well should _not,”_ Crowley said. “It’s—well, for one thing, I’m _never_ going to get their egos back under control—”

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said, now totally lost, “is _egos_ something...botanical, that I don’t understand—”

“No, no,” Crowley said, shaking his head, whole body alight with animation in the way Aziraphale had glimpsed only a few times before, “I mean, you know, their _egos,_ they’re going to go around thinking they can just do _whatever_ and get watered for it—”

“I thought,” Aziraphale said, carefully, “that it was more just a matter of, I don’t know, not wanting to over-water—”

“Oh yeah, that too,” Crowley said, slumping backwards. “Thank you for telling me, I s’pose, I _had_ been wondering about it, and, well, now I know. If I get out of this with the plants as the only casualty, I’m a lucky man.”

“I don’t know that anyone could call you _lucky,”_ Aziraphale said, quietly. “Under the present circumstances.”

“Well,” Crowley said, and shrugged. “Got you here, haven’t I? Seems like a stroke of luck to me.” He smiled, suddenly, a slightly lopsided grin.

Aziraphale, instinctively, smiled back. “At any rate,” he said, briskly, after a long moment, “I do hope that you _won’t_ have to consider your plants a casualty, because I’ve asked my man to find someone knowledgeable to look after them. Until you’re back. Which you will be. Because you’ve got me here.”

Crowley’s mouth fell open slightly. “You’ve—”

“I’ve arranged for your plants to be taken proper care of,” Aziraphale said, determinedly not making eye contact in the face of Crowley’s steady gaze. It was too much, it was too invasive, he’d crossed over a line and now Crowley was going to think that, what, that Aziraphale was invested in this case beyond a simple intellectual interest, which he _was,_ but that didn’t mean he wanted _Crowley_ to think that, and also he didn’t want Crowley to think that he—that he _expected,_ or _wanted—_

“That’s—” Crowley started. “I’m—uh, that is—thank you.” He paused, looking for a moment as though he might be about to say something else—something along the lines of _why bother_ or _what do you want here, really—_ but, thankfully, he shook his head, and stayed silent. 

“No trouble at all, really,” Aziraphale said, exhaling carefully. 

“Did you just come to deliver these, then?” Crowley asked, gesturing to the books. “World’s most aristocratic courier? Or is there news on the investigation?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Not much to report. I’m still working on getting one of my people in at your publishers’, and your, ah, your tip on Mary Hodges is starting to yield results, I think. And I’m having the police continue to question everyone who was at the Sitting Duck that night, see if they can find anyone who might have witnessed a conversation, or overheard something relevant. They’re going through the rubbish bins nearby as well, looking for any evidence of arsenic. Nothing yet, though.” He didn’t add that he didn’t really expect anything from the Sitting Duck end of things—which was why he was letting Shadwell do the work on that bit. But if his investigation at the publishers’ didn’t pan out…

“Glad I could be helpful, then,” Crowley said. He leaned forward, just enough to avoid catching the guard’s eye. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, mind immediately running through every possible and mortifying query. “Anything.”

“Do you really think I’ll get off?” Crowley forestalled Aziraphale’s instinctive nod with a shake of his head. “No. None of the _yes, have faith in me, I’m a brilliant detective and I’m also rather unbelievably kind so I’m saying this to buck up your spirits,_ now. I, I see it, and I appreciate it, but I need to know if you _actually_ think you can solve this. Because I don’t—” He clenched and unclenched his hands. “The worst thing, you know, would be to have hope, to really _believe_ in you, and then—”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, quickly. “I understand completely. I wouldn’t want—God knows I’m not in the business of providing false hope. But—” he let himself meet Crowley’s eyes— “when I say I can do it, when I tell you to believe me, not to doubt that we’ll get through this, the truth is— I say that as much for myself as I do for you. That’s the secret, that’s the reason, I tell you to have faith in me so I won’t lose faith in myself, and there—there it is,” he finished, lamely. “I can’t tell you what I really think, what I really believe, because I can’t allow myself to believe anything other than that I’ll—that _we’ll_ —succeed.” 

Crowley moved his head, something between affirmation and negation. “Of course. Course. I didn’t mean—I _do_ have faith in you,” he said. “You’re the only thing, really, that I really believe in, right now. It’s the rest of it, the whole damned system, the courts and the lawyers and the preponderance of evidence, that’s what I don’t trust.”

Aziraphale laughed, softly. “You know,” he said, “I remember, when I was younger, much younger, before the War, I told someone, I actually said, _no innocent man gets hanged for a crime he hasn’t committed, not in Britain in the twentieth century._ And then, I saw—well, it doesn’t matter what I saw, but all of a sudden I didn’t believe that anymore. So I, feeling, as you can imagine, rather terribly unequipped to go back to my old useless existence, not being at all the person I’d been before—I took up detection as a hobby, for a bit of a lark, you know, because I thought it might be fun. And because, I said, I wanted to do my bit to make sure the proper people got punished, and the others walked free. But I remember,” he said, not looking at Crowley anymore, “the first case I ever helped on, the fellow who did it—he definitely did it, no doubt about that, and he was a dam’ nasty piece of work, as well, no sympathy there—but when I saw in the paper the next morning that he’d been hung, I wept. Couldn’t tell you why, but—the thing is, is there any such thing as an innocent man in this world, and is there any man so guilty we should demand his life in exchange?”

Crowley seemed unsure whether to answer. “I don’t—I don’t know,” he said, after a moment.

“Neither do I,” Aziraphale said. “But I still think, I do, that the least I can do is try my damndest to fight for justice, even if I can’t be properly certain of what justice is.”

Crowley nodded, slowly. “I really thought,” he said, “that this was just—some sort of game, to you.”

Aziraphale laughed again, and he could hear the edge in it. “Oh, it is,” he said, a bit bitterly. “If you think I don’t get the thrill of my life dashing about feeling clever, you’re mistaken, dear fellow. But when it’s over—”

“Then it’s real,” Crowley said. “Yes. I see now.”

“This isn’t—you’re not—a game, though,” Aziraphale said, awkwardly. “Don’t think—”

“I don’t,” Crowley said, almost too low to hear. “I know—I don’t think that.”

There was a pause. Aziraphale could feel Crowley’s eyes on him still, the sense of their steady amber regard, but he kept his own gaze fixed downwards. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, at last, chancing a glance up. “I came here to give you a bit of cheer, and then—”

“No, no,” Crowley said, “it’s my fault, I’m the one that asked.”

“You didn’t ask for my entire tortured story,” Aziraphale said, attempting to make a joke of it. “Never actually—never said that before, really. To anyone. The whole thing.”

“Oh,” Crowley said, ridiculously soft. “I—well. Glad to listen.”

They sat there, Aziraphale’s eyes focusing, for some reason, on Crowley’s hands where they rested on the table, at their slight movement, the almost-imperceptible tremble.

The guard rapped on the door.

“That’ll be me, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale said, standing up.

“Thank you for the books,” Crowley said, “and—looking after the plants. Or, getting someone to.”

“Don’t mention it,” Aziraphale said.

“And I know if I thank you for your work you’ll tell me not to, so—”

“So _don’t—_ ”

“But I _can_ thank you for your company,” Crowley said, and smiled.

Aziraphale noticed the creases at the edges of his eyes, the hint of dimple in the swell of his cheek. He looked down and away, somehow feeling the radiating warmth of Crowley’s expression on the back of his neck.

“I think,” he said, quietly, “this time, I ought to thank you.”

* * *

Tracy ran an absentminded hand over the crystal ball in front of her. It was three hours yet till she was scheduled to close up shop for the day, but business had been lower than usual, and she was strongly considering locking up early and heading out for a drink when the bell chimed, and Mary Hodges walked in.

“Well,” Tracy said, genuinely delighted—it had been a few days, and she’d been starting to worry that perhaps Mary hadn’t any intention of taking her up on her offer of a free reading— “hello, there, dearie.”

“It’s still all right, isn’t it?” Mary asked, ducking her head to avoid hitting it on the entrance. “I don’t want to be a bother—”

“More than all right,” Tracy said, enthusiastically. “I’ve been hoping you’d stop by. Do sit down—can I get you anything, now? Cup of tea?”

“No, thank you,” said Mary, settling into the open seat. “Oh, I _am_ curious if we’ll manage any contact. Have you had much luck lately?”

“Simply buckets,” Tracy said, truthfully (assuming that one counted Mary’s arrival as luck, which she did). 

“Ooh, lovely!” said Mary, and shivered a bit.

“Have you used the Ouija board before, dear?” Tracy asked, pulling hers out.

“Oh, yes,” Mary said, eagerly. “Do you think—do you have—is there a spirit guide you usually come in contact with?”

“Generally, yes,” Tracy said, lowering her voice confidentially. “His name is Peter, and he was a chimney sweep in the time of Queen Victoria, poor dear. Burned to death, he’s told me, at the age of only twelve.”

Mary gasped gratifyingly. “Oh, no,” she said, tone delightfully thrilled. _“Such_ a tragedy.”

“Yes, indeed,” Tracy agreed. “We’ll see if he manages to get us through to anyone else—and then, of course, with you here, we’ll see what _else_ might happen. Ready, then?”

“Yes, yes,” said Mary, and the two women arranged the Ouija board between them, Tracy’s hands on the planchette. 

Tracy let her eyes flutter shut, inhaling and exhaling a few times, listening carefully to the sound of Mary’s breathing, too. After what she judged to be an appropriate amount of time, she jolted, slightly, keeping her eyes closed.

“Oh!” said Mary, “Oh! Madame Tracy, are you—is someone there? A spirit?”

Tracy moved her hand, her fingers resting lightly on the planchette, spelling out a jerky Y-E-S.

“Oh, _wonderful,”_ said Mary. “Is this—is this Peter, then?”

Y-E-S

“Thank you, Peter. Are you—you are the spirit guide?”

Y-E-S

“And is there any other spirit which wishes to speak with us?”

Y-E-S

“Will you let them through for us, Peter?”

Tracy judged it a good time to indulge in some theatrics, and let the planchette slide haphazardly around the Ouija board for a minute before settling back down.

“Who’s there?” Mary asked.

J-A-C-K

“Jack? Jack who?”

H-A-H-A-H-A

“Oh, dear,” Mary said, worriedly, “do you think—”

The planchette began to move again.

R-I-P-P-E-R

“Oh!” Mary gasped, delighted. “Jack the _Ripper?”_

Y-E-S

“Oh my goodness. Oh my. Oh, dear Madame Tracy, do you think—do you have a message for us, Jack? From Beyond?”

B-E-N-E-A-T-H

“Oh—oh, are you in _Hell?”_ Mary asked, reverently. 

Y-E-S

“O-oo-ooh,” said Mary, with rather more relish than was perhaps strictly fitting for someone who described herself as a “Christian woman.” 

Tracy began spelling more quickly with the planchette. _Demons everywhere—tortures beyond imagination—lakes of fire—_

All really rather basic stuff, but Mary seemed to eat it up.

“Why are you contacting us, Jack?”

_Need to confess—atone for sins—reveal—reveal—reveal—_

Tracy broke off abruptly, jerking her hands backwards off the Ouija board. _Here we go,_ she thought, grimly. _Show-stopper._

“Mary Hodges?” she said, in a raspy tone, a register below her typical voice.

“Oh—Tracy? Yes?”

“Not Tracy,” Tracy said, keeping the same pitch. “This is Beelzebub, Prince of Hell, Lord of the Flies, Second Only To Satan Himself.”

“Oh, my Lord,” Mary said, breathlessly. and Tracy wasn’t quite sure which Lord she was addressing. “It’s really happening.”

“I have a message for Mary Hodges,” Tracy-as-Beelzebub continued.

“That’s me!”

“There will be a great disaster at the publishing firm of Hastur and Ligur. If you wish to avoid catastrophe, you must leave your position there immediately.”

“Oh—” said Mary. “Oh no! But, but, Mr. Hastur, and Mr. Ligur, and the poor authors, I should, I should tell them—”

“Tell no one,” Tracy said, firmly, “on pain of death, punished by an eternity in the deepest pit. Leave your job. Say nothing. The forces of Hell have warned you, Mary Hodges. There will be no second message.”

Tracy let out a high, keening sound— _that’s going to hurt in a bit—_ and slumped back against her chair, breathing heavily.

“Madame Tracy!” Mary bustled over and shook her shoulders. “Madame Tracy, are you—”

Tracy blinked her eyes, the picture of innocent confusion. “Did something happen, just now? Oh, my, I feel _ever_ so odd—”

“Do you remember?” Mary asked, eagerly. “Could you hear?”

“All I remember,” Tracy said, slowly, “was hearing Peter, and then—then Jack the Ripper, and then—it all goes blank, I’m afraid. No idea. What happened?”

Mary worried at her lower lip. “I’m not supposed to tell you, I think,” she said, reluctantly. “The instructions were—they were very clear.” 

“Say no more,” Tracy said, holding up a hand. “I don’t wish—of course you should listen to whatever spirit may have reached you in my absence.”

“Spirit,” said Mary, carefully. “Right. Yes. Um, thank you, so much, Madame Tracy, this has really been _so_ enlightening—”

“I’m so glad, dearie,” Tracy said. “I’d offer to try another round with you, but, I’m afraid—”

“No, no,” Mary said. “You look half done in.”

“Yes,” said Tracy, “yes, I suppose you’re right. Well, then. Probably make a cup of tea and close up early.”

“That sounds lovely,” Mary said, and picked up her pocketbook. “Thank you, again—”

“Do come back, now,” Tracy said, showing her the door. “I mean it.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mary, distractedly, and was gone.

* * *

_Lord A. —_

_I believe The Target has been successfully finessed!! Best of luck to you and your young man—_

_M. T. Potts_

“Not my young man,” Aziraphale murmured, and stood up. “Newt!”

“Yes, m’lord?”

“See if one of the typists is free, won’t you? I believe there’s just been an opening at Hastur and Ligur’s.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is now [ an illustration of this chapter ](https://gottagobuycheese.tumblr.com/post/617451873784446976/well-crowley-said-and-shrugged-got-you-here) done by the illustrious gottagobuycheese!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to attheborder and runningturnip for beta reading!
> 
> content note: this chapter contains brief, non-detailed discussion of suicide as a theory in the murder case.

Anathema Device was not a young woman generally given to whimsy. Rather, she made decisions with conscious forethought and careful weighing of alternatives.

Her choice to respond to a rather intriguingly worded newspaper ad seeking “women of intelligence and discretion” for typing posts had, however, been made entirely on impulse, born of the realization that she had very little to do and even less money to do it with, and a general sense that there was something _interesting_ here. (Anathema was rational, but she also trusted her instincts. They had, time and again, proven reliable— _uncannily_ so—and trusting instinct was therefore an inherently rational act, in her opinion.)

The ad, as it turned out, had been placed by Lord Aziraphale Eastgate. It had also turned out to encompass something more than just typing. Anathema, along with several other hires, had received a rapid and thorough education in various aspects of investigation: how to pick locks, how to follow someone without being seen, how to ask questions without seeming like you were asking questions.

“I expect,” Lord Aziraphale had said, “that most of you have been underestimated your whole lives. People do that to women. Well. _Men_ do that to women. I’d imagine it becomes somewhat tiresome. But—the thing is, there’s a sort of power in that. Being overlooked, I mean. I’ve come to realize that seeming soft and simple means that people let things slip around you, things they wouldn’t let someone else hear. So. Let’s take advantage of that, shall we?”

Anathema had now been working at the typing bureau (some of the longer-tenured staff jokingly referred to it as a “harem,” which she’d found at first vaguely insulting and inappropriate, before meeting Lord Aziraphale and realizing the absurdity of any such implications) for the better part of a year, and had undertaken a number of assignments requiring various degrees of ingenuity and sang-froid. 

She, along with several of the other typists, was sent to interview for the open position at the publishing firm of Hastur and Ligur; she herself was offered the job.

“For now,” Lord Aziraphale said, in their tête-à-tête before her first day, “you’re just to watch and listen. Note down anything unusual you notice; poke around if you can do so without getting caught, but the priority for now is ensuring you do a good enough job as a secretary to stay employed as our spy.”

“Understood, my lord.”

“I anticipate it’ll be a trifle dull,” Lord Aziraphale said apologetically. “At least at first. Once I’ve a better idea of what we might be looking for, I’ll be able to give you more specific instructions. But for now, I’m afraid it’s wait-and-see.”

“That’s quite all right, my lord,” Anathema said. “I’m patient, you know.”

“Good,” said Lord Aziraphale, and his face, which had been lined with anxiety, broke into a smile. Anathema wasn’t much given to outward displays of emotion, but she found herself smiling back. There was something about Lord Aziraphale’s face that did that to you. 

She’d now been employed with Hastur and Ligur just shy of a week, and had settled in well enough that they’d stopped calling her “Mary,” which was a small victory, anyway. So far, however, “watch and listen” had proven fruitless—she was kept busy enough with typing that there wasn’t much leisure for snooping around under the guise of “tidying up,” and Hastur and Ligur held their meetings with clients, as well as with each other, behind closed doors. What she did gather, however, was that it seemed as though Ligur covered a bit more of the literary side of things, and Hastur more of the financials. They met with clients together on a semi-regular basis, and Anathema regularly served them tea in almost exactly the manner described by Mary Hodges at the Crowley trial. (Lord Aziraphale had given her a write-up of the case, so that she’d have a better idea of what to keep an eye out for.) And so far, she’d not heard the names of Louis Ferno or Anthony Crowley mentioned even once.

The only thing of possible significance she’d noticed thus far was a folder she’d spotted when filing some papers for Hastur. He’d been in the room, at the time, so she hadn’t been able to see beyond the label: _Hades Trust._ She’d heard the name before, she thought, but couldn’t quite remember where. Still, she noted it dutifully and sent it off to Lord Aziraphale at the address he’d provided. And she continued to watch and wait.

* * *

“Hades Trust, hmm?” Aziraphale muttered to himself, folding up the note from Miss Device. “What _have_ you two been getting into, then?”

“My lord?” 

“Just talking to myself,” Aziraphale told Newt, who was hovering anxiously in the doorway. “Here.” He held out the note. “Go and look up whatever we have on the Hades Trust, will you? I seem to remember it falling rather spectacularly apart, but my memory could use a jog.”

“Of course, my lord,” Newt said. “Right away. But, I, erm, I came, actually, to report back on the Sitting Duck end of things.”

“Oh, really?” Aziraphale asked, sitting up straighter in his chair. “Do go on.”

Newt grimaced. “I should say, first off—it’s not good news for us.”

“No?”

“I don’t think so, anyway.”

Aziraphale fiddled with the note. “Well, then?”

“Sergeant Shadwell and I managed to track down someone who saw Louis Ferno leaving the Sitting Duck that night,” Newt said. “We asked her if he seemed depressed, or upset at all—and she said no, actually, he was in good spirits. Mentioned having some good coming to him.”

“Mm,” Aziraphale said, frowning. “I suppose it _could_ be a sort of, oh, euphoria, if he’d just decided to kill himself and frame Crowley for it, but frankly I’ve never really thought Ferno seemed like the suicidal type and this doesn’t do much to contradict that.”

“No, my lord.”

Aziraphale held Miss Device’s note out again, and this time Newt took it. “Well, thank you anyway,” he said, heavily. “I don’t suppose there was anything else to be gathered from Shadwell’s interview with this lady?”

 _“_ Not a _lady_ , as I understand it, my lord,” Newt said carefully. 

“Oh?” Aziraphale asked. “A professional, of sorts? I suppose I never thought to inquire whether Ferno was _that_ way inclined as well…”

“No, no,” Newt said, quickly. “A beggar. She said Ferno gave her a shilling, actually, said he wanted to spread around his good fortune.”

“So it was monetary, then,” Aziraphale said, mostly to himself. “His _good fortune.”_

“I don’t know, my lord—”

Aziraphale shook his head. “No, no, let me think. He’d just been at a meeting with his publishers, they’d been discussing his contract, and then he’s in good spirits and talking about his _fortune,_ he goes and tries to get Crowley back...I think Ferno might have been expecting some sort of payout from Hastur and Ligur."

"But didn't Miss Hodges say that Ferno seemed upset when he left after the meeting?"

"She did," Aziraphale said, "but she admitted herself she didn't know Ferno that well and it's entirely possible she misinterpreted his mood. He might've been simply determined, planning his next move when he went to meet Crowley. We'll know more if we can determine what they might actually have been arguing about. Can you write back to Miss Device and tell her to have a look around for any sign of Ferno’s contract? See if she can wangle staying after hours one night, do a bit of snooping.”

“Very well, my lord,” Newt said, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, “but—”

“Yes?”

“Well, I know you always say motive can be anything, but do you really think Hastur and Ligur would’ve _killed_ Ferno over a contract dispute?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “I don’t think it’s that, precisely. But they’re hiding something, and I’ve never liked the set-up of that ménage-à-trois tea meeting...it’s seemed odd the whole way through. Too well-choreographed. But, whatever it might be, I _do_ want a look at Ferno’s contract.”

Newt bobbed his head. “I’ll write Miss Device right away, my lord.”

* * *

The Hastur and Ligur end of the business was finally getting somewhere, Aziraphale thought with slight relief as he waited on the gaol bench to be shown in to see Crowley again. However—it might have been a thread, but it was a thin and brittle one at best, and so it wouldn’t do to abandon all other lines of inquiry. That was why he’d come today, after all. To see whether Crowley had any ideas about potential motives that tended more to the personal, rather than the professional.

“Well, there’s me, of course,” Crowley said, once they’d greeted each other (was it just Aziraphale’s fancy, or had even these forced and stiff interactions gained an element of ease, over time?). “In terms of personal motive.”

Aziraphale wasn’t certain whether to laugh or scold. “I thought we’d ruled you out.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said, and his gaze shifted downwards, “I wondered if you might be ruling me back in.”

“What? No,” Aziraphale said, firmly. “That’s not—that’s the whole _point._ That you’re innocent.” 

“Is it?” Crowley asked, glancing upward again, with the quiet passion of someone who had been storing something up inside and was finally able to say it. “Because I—look. I’ve told you how damn grateful I am—”

“—And I’ve told you not to tell me that—”

“—And I _am,_ I _am_ grateful that you’ve taken such an interest in my case, I’m glad as Hell to have you on my side, but I just wonder, I _have_ been wondering—why.”

“Why I’m helping you? Because I believe you’re innocent,” Aziraphale said, impatiently. “I thought I’d made that rather abundantly clear.”

“Why do you think I’m innocent?” Crowley asked, his voice loud enough that the guard raised a hand in warning. He slouched back in his chair. “You came here that first day, you told me you believed me, and I’m—I just don’t know _why_ you do.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, and it sounded somehow very small. “I suppose—I don’t know.”

Crowley raised an incredulous eyebrow. “You don’t _know?”_

Aziraphale shook his head. “I’ve attended dozens of murder trials. I’ve seen men I knew were guilty swear their innocence until they were blue in the face. And then I came to your trial, and I heard you speak, and I simply—I had this feeling. Instinct. _Hunch,_ to use the terminology of your stories. That you were telling the truth.”

“And this _hunch,”_ Crowley said, “you still believe it? Even now that you’ve looked into things, you’ve found no one else who could’ve done it, no one else who wanted to—”

“That’s not true,” Aziraphale said sharply. “I _know_ Hastur and Ligur are hiding _something_ . That end of things is looking _very_ promising—”

“Sure, they’re shady, I _know_ they’re shady, it doesn’t mean they’re _murderers,”_ Crowley said. “If you really thought they’d done it, you wouldn’t have come here just to dredge up whatever old gossip you can get out of me to try and find a dark horse from Louis’ past, someone with a _personal motive,_ would you?”

“I didn’t come here just for that.”

“Oh?” Crowley cocked his head. “Didn’t you?”

“No,” Aziraphale said, feeling himself flush. “That is—I came for that, yes, but I also wanted to see _you.”_

Crowley blinked slowly. “Oh. Well…”

“I know it’s not very pleasant here, that’s all,” Aziraphale said quickly, “and, erm, I’ve gotten the sense—perhaps incorrectly—that our chats, they, well, they cheer you up. A bit.”

Crowley broke into a smile, and Aziraphale nearly laughed out of sheer relief.

“More than a bit,” Crowley said, sincerely. “It’s like—a beam of light. Brightens up everything around it.”

Aziraphale looked down at his hands. “I’m glad,” he said. “That even if I haven’t made as much progress as I’d like on the case, I’ve at least...done _something_ , I suppose.”

“You’ve done _everything,”_ Crowley said, “you’re the only one who—you’ve done plenty.”

Aziraphale exhaled, trying to let go of whatever tension remained between them, and said, lightly, “Well, then, to return to the point, before you made that ridiculous remark about your own motive— _is_ there anyone else who might’ve wanted to kill Ferno for personal reasons? You, ah, you mentioned his...infidelities, before. Is it possible that there was someone else he threw over, in the interest of resuming his relationship with you?”

Crowley shrugged. “Look, I don’t know much about whatever other affairs Louis might have had. I never got the sense that there were particularly strong emotional attachments involved.”

“Is there anyone who might know _more?”_

“You could try asking some of Louis’ friends,” Crowley said. “Or, well— _friends_ is putting it strongly. Hangers-on, I suppose you could say. Fans. Louis was always more interested in one-sided adoration than mutual respect.”

“Hence the failure of your relationship,” Aziraphale said, without thinking. He glanced worriedly at Crowley—too flippant? —but Crowley was, thankfully, smiling.

“Hence the failure of our relationship,” he said, wryly. “But. Yeah. It’s possible Louis bragged about his, I don’t know, his _conquests_ to some of ‘em.”

“It’s worth a try,” Aziraphale said, “while we wait for progress on the Hastur and Ligur end of things.”

“Yeah,” Crowley agreed, not sounding convinced. He gave Aziraphale the names of a few of the people in Ferno’s circle, though, and Aziraphale diligently took them down, resolving to visit at the first opportunity (even though he didn’t relish the prospect of chatting with a couple of affected Bohemians—but then again, it wouldn’t do to judge these people before he’d even met them. Crowley certainly hadn’t turned out to be anything like what he might have expected). 

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said, flipping his notepad shut. “And—I know there’s less than two weeks till your new trial, so if you’re feeling, I don’t know, less than confident—”

“Didn’t you tell me to have faith in you?” Crowley asked. “So you don’t lose faith in yourself?”

“Ah. Well. Yes. I did say that, I believe,” Aziraphale said, and tried to ignore whatever the shiver was that went through him at the idea that Crowley had kept those words verbatim in his mind. 

“Then I’m _not_ less than confident,” Crowley said firmly. “I’m completely confident. In you.”

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said. “Because I _will_ solve this.”

“I know,” said Crowley.

* * *

One might imagine, Anathema thought ruefully to herself, that the firm of Hastur and Ligur dealt with highly sensitive legal matters, not second-rate literature, from the level of security that seemed to be omnipresent in their offices. She’d been looking for a change to get Ferno’s contract for three days now, and had been foiled at every attempt by inconvenient interruptions and padlocked drawers. It was altogether too easy to imagine Lord Aziraphale waiting impatiently as the date of Anthony Crowley’s new trial drew ever closer, and although Anathema knew that Lord Aziraphale was perfectly aware of how long these things could take, she couldn’t help but feel as though she were letting the operation down with her delays.

The problem, she thought, was that she didn’t even know where she was supposed to be looking in the first place. She’d been called on to help file a number of documents during her short tenure at Hastur and Ligur, but as they hadn’t signed a new client in that time (not surprising in the best of circumstances, doubly so because she very much doubted anyone was chomping at the bit to sign with an agency whose literary star had just been murdered by its commercial stalwart), she hadn’t gotten a chance to see where the contracts were kept.

This changed, finally, on Wednesday, when she showed a client out the door, and Hastur called after her on her way back to her desk: “Miss Device? Can you re-file Mr. Hammond’s contract, please?”

“Of course,” Anathema said quickly, and took the folder Hastur was proffering. “Ah—where exactly—?”

“Third drawer on the left,” said Hastur, gesturing to one of the filing cabinets. “Oh—here’s the key—” He fished it out of his pocket and handed it to Anathema. (It smelt faintly of algae, for some reason.)

“Thank you, sir,” Anathema said, and, conscious of Hastur’s eyes on her, unlocked the cabinet and flipped quickly through the rows of contracts, noting _Ferno_ on a thick file a few ahead of _Hammond._ She filed the folder away, shut and locked the cabinet, and handed the key back to Hastur.

“That’ll be all, Miss Device,” Hastur said, re-pocketing the key.

“Yes, sir.” Anathema withdrew to her desk.

The question now was how to get back into the drawer, with enough time to read the contract and report back on it to Lord Aziraphale. She stared across the lobby at Leonard the lizard (who stared back, balefully) and thought hard. Could she get to it this evening? Hastur and Ligur each locked their office doors at night and took their keys away with them upon leaving. Anathema knew how to pick locks—Lord Aziraphale had made certain that all the typists did, and she’d been practising at home ever since being stationed at Hastur and Ligur’s—but the door to Hastur’s office was in full view of the entryway, and although Anathema was fairly certain she could wangle staying behind after hours, the charwoman would be in, cleaning up until half seven, and there was _no_ chance Anathema would be able to stay that late without raising some suspicions (which would be fine if this was her only goal, but Lord Aziraphale had instructed her to remain at Hastur and Ligur’s for the foreseeable future, and she couldn’t jeopardize her future employment by getting caught peeking at files).

But surely the _charwoman_ had a key, she’d have to have keys to all the offices. If Anathema could just get her to unlock the office and leave her alone in there for five minutes—but on what pretext?

Leonard blinked slowly. Anathema stared into his dark eyes, and a plan began, slowly, to solidify.

Ligur left first, at five sharp; Hastur followed about fifteen minutes later. “Still here, Miss Device?” he asked, glancing at her typewriter.

“Just finishing up a few things,” she said, projecting her best Efficient Young Woman persona. “Wanted to make certain I get the notes from that Hammond meeting typed up before I forget.”

“All right,” Hastur said, dubiously. “Just let Mrs. Usher know when you’re done.”

“Of course, sir,” Anathema said, and watched from the corner of her eye as the door closed behind him.

She waited until the charwoman had finished with Hastur’s office and moved on to the kitchen before making her move. 

“Mrs. Usher?” she asked, poking her head into the kitchen and schooling her features into an expression of conscientious distress. 

“Yes, miss?” Anathema had only spoken to Mrs. Usher a few times before, and she had the distinct impression that the charwoman didn’t actually know her name, and was only vaguely aware of her position. Which was all to the good, at present.

“I’m dreadfully sorry to bother you,” Anathema continued, wringing her hands together, “but Mr. Ligur asked me to feed Leonard for him, and I’ve just realized that I left the food in Mr. Hastur’s office. Somewhere. And now it’s been locked, and I don’t have the key…” She sent up a hasty prayer that Mrs. Usher wouldn’t think to wonder why the food for Ligur’s lizard would be in Hastur’s office.

Thankfully, she didn’t seem inclined to delve deeper. “Oh—yes, miss, I suppose I could do that.”

“Thank you _ever_ so much,” Anathema gushed. “I was so _terribly_ worried, I’m still rather new and I did promise Mr. Ligur I’d do it and I was just thinking, what if I forgot and then something happened to him and it was my fault, I just don’t know what I’d do—”

She babbled on in this fashion while Mrs. Usher unlocked the door to Hastur’s office.

“I know it was here _somewhere,”_ Anathema said uncertainly, and began to make a show of looking inside potted plants and behind bookshelves.

After a minute or so of this, Mrs. Usher sighed, and said, “I’ll be in the kitchen, let me know when you’re done, would you?” 

The moment she was out of sight, Anathema abandoned the vase she’d been holding upside down and made a beeline for the drawer she’d seen the Ferno contract in earlier. She drew the set of lockpicks that Lord Aziraphale had issued every member of the typing staff out of her pocket and set to work. It wasn’t, thankfully, a particularly complicated lock, and she was able to get it open after only a few minutes’ struggle.

Desperately conscious of Mrs. Usher’s presence in the kitchen, and the fact that she might return at any moment to find Anathema very much _not_ engaged in feeding the lizard, she hurriedly flicked through the files to find Ferno’s contract, scanning quickly over its contents and doing her best to commit the salient points to memory. Memorization techniques were another thing that Lord Aziraphale made certain his typists were proficient in, and, thankfully, the contract was simple enough for a layman to understand, no complicated clauses or legal jargon. She skimmed it a second time and hastily replaced it, careful to leave everything exactly as she’d found it. She shut the drawer, making certain to slide it closed rather than slamming it, re-fastened the lock, and retreated from the cabinet and out of Hastur’s office, closing the door gently behind her.

“Did you find it, then?” Mrs. Usher asked, taking a step out of the kitchen. “The food?”

“Found it, fed Leonard, put it back again,” Anathema said (as, of course, there was no actual lizard food for her to produce). “Thank you ever so much.”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Usher, and Anathema was grateful to note a complete lack of curiosity in her tone.

She thanked the charwoman again, bade her a hasty good-bye, and headed off to telephone Lord Aziraphale about her discovery.

* * *

Aziraphale settled himself carefully on the sofa. It was a far cry from the elegantly-upholstered Chesterfield that furnished his flat, being a sort of dingy brownish color, with springs that squeaked when one sat on it and an abundance of stains that Aziraphale decided not to wonder about too closely.

“Sorry about the digs,” one of his hosts said, watching Aziraphale shift his weight to avoid an unpleasant encounter with a particularly aggressive spring. “Not what you’re used to, I’m guessing.”

He said this with a faint air of scorn, and Aziraphale internally rolled his eyes. He strongly suspected that the rabbity-looking young man in front of him was in fact possessed of a respectable amount of family wealth, and had chosen, rather than been forced, to live in this squalor.

 _Squalor_ was perhaps overstating it—it was a good-sized flat, and the walls and ceiling seemed intact enough—but certainly no one had taken any care in decorating or maintaining it.

“Fancy a drink?”

“Ah—no, thank you,” said Aziraphale, privately distrusting the cleanliness of any glass he might receive.

“Suit yourself.”

There was a pause, and Aziraphale let his attention flicker over the pair of young men in front of him. These were the members of Louis Ferno’s Bohemian set that Crowley had directed him to speak to—Eric Stone and Eric Williams, two youths that might have been easily mistaken for any number of other aspiring creatives living in this area of London. They looked alike, in the way that couples sometimes did, both clad in slightly off-kilter clothing, with swipes of carelessly-applied makeup under their eyes and artfully rumpled hair. 

It occurred to Aziraphale to wonder if this was what Crowley dressed like, ordinarily. He’d been wearing standard-issue prisoner’s clothes each time they’d met, and the colourless, shapeless garments had seemed even more so in contrast to Crowley’s essential vitality, such that Aziraphale had forgotten to consider them as clothing at all. The image came to mind, unbidden, of Crowley dressed in the velvet smoking jacket that Eric Stone was wearing now, the neckline falling open to reveal defined collarbones and a few curls of chest hair, rifling a hand through his hair the way he’d done in the interrogation room, leaning back and stretching—

Aziraphale yanked his thoughts forcefully back to the matters at hand. 

“Thank you both for agreeing to see me,” he said, nodding politely at each of them. “Anthony Crowley gave me your names; he said you knew Louis Ferno.”

“Yes,” Eric Stone said, a bit warily, and kicked his feet up onto the settee in front of him. “Knew ‘em both.”

“You were—friends of his? Admirers of his work?”

“Louis Ferno,” Eric Williams said, leaning forward, “was a literary genius.”

“And,” Eric Stone added, “a nasty son-of-a-bitch.”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. “You were not...personally fond of him, then?”

Both Erics shook their heads. “No,” Eric Stone said, “not once we got to know him. Oh, he was charming, all right, and, yes— _Myriads Though Bright_ is still one of the most brilliant things I’ve ever read.”

(Aziraphale wondered if the rest of Eric’s reading had been confined to soap advertisements and the more saccharine variety of children’s story.)

“But,” Eric continued, “he had this terrible sort of God complex. The Gospel of Louis Ferno. It was a bit like being friends with the Sun.”

“Not in a good way,” Eric Williams clarified. “In the get-too-close-and-it-burns-you way.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said thoughtfully, “I can see that.”

“Never knew quite how Crowley put up with him,” Eric Williams said, frowning. “No wonder he got fed up and chucked it.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, “about that—Crowley mentioned that Ferno had, erm, that he’d...dallied, with some other people in your circle. I wondered if perhaps either of you knew of anyone who might have been—or seen themselves as—wronged by him, in some way.”

“Looking out for an alternate suspect?”

“Just—exploring all avenues,” Aziraphale said stiffly.

Eric Stone shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Honestly—Louis was pretty clever about only ever finding people who didn’t much mind what he did.”

“Crowley, I suppose, being the exception?”

“Apparently.”

“And—not just, ah, romantically, then, you can’t think of anyone whom he might have angered some other way? It needn’t be anything terribly serious, but…”

Both Erics thought for a moment.

“I guess it’s not what you want to hear,” Eric Williams said at last, “but among our set—it’s hard to imagine anyone feeling so wronged that they resorted to _murder_ without at least attempting to have it out some other way.”

Aziraphale nodded. “Yes, I see. Not enough...inhibition, I suppose, to let things build up.”

“Not half.”

“And—” he was truly grasping at straws, now— “according to your opinion of Louis Ferno’s character, would you have imagined him likely to take his own life?”

Eric Stone frowned. “Well,” he said, slowly, “I know it’s not something you can tell, from the outside—but I’d say no. Not unless he was far better at deceiving us all than we ever thought he was.”

Eric Williams nodded in agreement. “Louis thought he was entitled to everything good in life, that he deserved to be treated as though he were special because he _was_ special. I just...if you think you’re the only important thing on Earth, you don’t go destroying that thing, do you?”

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “It’s difficult to say. Out of pique, or frustration, or in revenge, to make a point—perhaps.”

Eric Williams shook his head. “I just can’t see Louis ever allowing _himself_ to be hurt in service of a message to someone else.”

And Aziraphale, as he thanked both Erics and took his leave, was rather inclined to agree with him.

So. No other suspects from Ferno’s social circle, and the likelihood of suicide as low as it had ever been—there had better, he thought grimly, be some progress on the Hastur and Ligur side of things.

He returned home to find Newt in a more-than-usually agitated state. “My lord!” he said, practically jumping on Aziraphale to remove his overcoat. “Miss Device, she called, and she’s found Ferno’s contract, so I told her to come right over, I hope that’s all right—”

“Yes, yes, go on—”

“And she’s waiting in the library, my lord, whenever you’re ready for her.”

“I’ll go right in,” Aziraphale said, hastily unwrapping his scarf and throwing it untidily onto a chair. “You too, Newt, I want you taking notes on whatever Miss Device says.”

Anathema stood up immediately upon Aziraphale’s entrance, shook his hand—she had a good handshake, he remembered from her initial interview for the typing bureau—and sat down again at his indication.

Aziraphale settled himself on the sofa, Newt hovering behind, took a deep breath, and said, “Now, Miss Device, I hear you have some news?”

“Yes, my lord,” Anathema said, and he could hear the undercurrent of excitement in her tone. “I was able to locate Louis Ferno’s contract today.”

“And?” Aziraphale asked, leaning forward.

“I think it must have been drawn up soon after his first book,” Anathema said, “from the dates I saw. And from the terms.”

“What terms?”

“It’s a five-book contract. Ferno was guaranteed publication of the next five manuscripts he submitted—there was some language about being subject to editor approval and so forth but essentially they were obligated to publish him. And as long as he turned in manuscripts, he was owed the advance sums that were laid out in the contract, regardless of whether the books actually earned back the money.”

“And Ferno’s books haven’t been selling well, have they?” Aziraphale asked.

Anathema shook her head. “Not from what I can tell. I’d say Hastur and Ligur were losing money on every book of Ferno’s they published, but they were obligated to keep paying out.”

“Interesting,” Aziraphale said, softly. “I wonder—” He broke off. “I need you to stay there, for now,” he told Anathema, who nodded. “The meeting the day of Ferno’s murder was a discussion of his new manuscript—I’d think that must be on the premises somewhere. See if you can’t locate it. And keep an eye out for any further financial documents you might encounter; report back on whatever you find. I’m not entirely certain what we’re looking for—anything that doesn’t add up, I suppose. Understood?”

“Yes, my lord,” Anathema said, and rose again.

Aziraphale took her hand, holding it for a moment instead of shaking it. “It’s good work you’ve done, Miss Device. Keep at it. It might help free an innocent man.”

Anathema smiled. “I hope so.”

After Anathema had gone, Aziraphale looked up at Newt, whose expression had fallen into poorly-concealed confusion.

“What is it?”

“Well, my lord,” Newt said, slowly, “do you really think Hastur and Ligur would have killed Ferno just to get out of paying him?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “It might have been more than that. The Hades Trust—if they invested in that, and lost enough money, they might well have been in far more desperate circumstances than we’ve thought. They might not kill Ferno to get out of paying him, no, but they might well have done it to save their business.”

“How do we determine that, sir?”

Aziraphale stood up. “We need to find out what was said in that meeting.” 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to attheborder and runningturnip for beta reading!

“So,” Crowley said, eyes fixed on Aziraphale. “One week left.”

Aziraphale fidgeted. “You’ve been keeping track.”

“Well, yes,” Crowley said, sounding half-amused. “It’s  _ my  _ neck the noose’ll be going around, after all.”

Aziraphale glanced thoughtlessly at his neck. The prison clothing still hung off him loosely, the top button slightly astray, revealing the hollow of his throat, the beginning of a sharp clavicle.

He looked away, quickly. 

“I don’t think we need despair of your neck just yet,” he said, lightly. “I wanted to tell you—one of my people found Ferno’s contract at your publishers’ offices. It seems he was guaranteed payment as long as he turned in manuscripts, and I’m wondering now whether Hastur and Ligur might have wanted to avoid such payment.”

Crowley frowned. “You think they’re in financial trouble?”

“I don’t know yet,” Aziraphale admitted. “That’s another thing I’m having investigated. But what I wanted to ask you was—you said you didn’t know, did you, what Ferno’s next book was about?”

Crowley shook his head. “He was still working on it when we—ah, split. And he never let me see things before he was finished with them. Or even—well, one time he  _ said  _ he wanted my advice, asked me to read something over, but when I came back with, oh, just a few suggestions, he got angry, said I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.”

“From what I’ve learned of his character,” Aziraphale said dryly, “it’s hardly surprising Ferno couldn’t handle a little constructive criticism.”

Crowley grinned. “You  _ have  _ got a handle on him, then.”

Aziraphale felt an answering smile rise to his own lips. “Thanks to you.”

“But,” Crowley continued, “no, I haven’t any idea what he was writing. What,” he asked, laughing a little, “d’you think the prose was so bad Hastur and Ligur felt compelled to off him for it?”

“Not exactly,” said Aziraphale. “But—well, knowing Ferno, do you think it might be likely that he’d write something deliberately, I don’t know, controversial, or damaging, just to tick off his publishers?”

“Absolutely,” Crowley said. “What, do you think—they couldn’t pay him, and they told him that, and he wrote something about it as his way of telling ‘em to go to hell?”

“Perhaps,” Aziraphale said. “The other thing I wanted to ask—do you think it’s likely that, if Hastur and Ligur told Ferno they wouldn’t be publishing his next book, he’d threaten legal action against them?”

“Oh yes,” Crowley said. “Louis felt, you know, that he was  _ owed  _ things out of life. Money, fame, adoration, all of that. And when someone got in the way of what he believed he was entitled to, I don’t think he’d hesitate to act and take what he thought ought to be his. And,” he continued, “it sounds as though, in this case, he might have been  _ right.” _

“Certainly,” Aziraphale said. “That is—if he did, in fact, turn in a manuscript, Hastur and Ligur were certainly obligated to publish it and he would have been completely correct in bringing the force of the law against them to obtain his payment. And that adds up with what we’ve heard from someone who saw him leaving the pub that night, said he had good things coming to him— _ and  _ it might have been why he came by to see you.”

Crowley frowned. “Because—?”

“Because,” Aziraphale said, thinking out loud, “let’s see. Hastur and Ligur owe Ferno money; he’s worried, for some reason, that they’re not going to pay him; he goes to meet with them and I think we  _ have  _ to assume, from the way he acted afterwards, that the meeting went  _ well.  _ From his perspective, anyway. That he thinks they’ll pay up, that they’ll publish the new manuscript. And, well, he feels  _ happy,  _ and he comes to see you feeling confident and successful, and that’s why he asks you—well, what he asked you.”

“To—start things up again, you mean.”

Aziraphale nodded, obscurely grateful not to have to spell it out. “You said he felt as though he  _ deserved  _ things. And, I mean—not that you’re a  _ thing,  _ of course, but—”

“Well,” Crowley said, his mouth twitching into something that wasn’t quite a smile, “perhaps not in your mind—”

“Not at all,” Aziraphale said, quickly. “But Ferno may have, he may have, ah, thought that he was entitled—to you. To a relationship with you. To your—love, I suppose. Adoration.”

Crowley nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said, “I can buy that. But then, it’s just—where does that get us? Unless—” his face lit up a bit— “no, wait, I see where you’re going. Because of how Louis acted after the meeting, we have to assume he thought he  _ was  _ getting published and paid. Which would mean Hastur and Ligur  _ did  _ agree to pay him, in the meeting, and then, if we can prove they didn’t have the money—”

“That’s not a motive, exactly,” Aziraphale said, catching a bit of the excitement himself, “but it’s highly suggestive if they promised something they had no intention of following up on to a man who was hardly shy about demanding what was due him.”

“Because they knew he wouldn’t be around to follow up on it,” Crowley finished triumphantly. “Yeah. Yeah. I see that.”

“The manuscript, though,” Aziraphale said. “I still want to see that. Or, at the very least, to know what it’s about. Our girl in the office said that the text of all of Ferno’s other books were stored in his file, but she couldn’t find the new one. Is theret somewhere else that you know of where they might have kept drafts that weren’t ready yet?”

Crowley shook his head. “Where Hastur and Ligur kept drafts? No. But, you know, Louis would’ve had a copy for himself. He always used to keep a first-draft manuscript around, he told me, so that his  _ unaltered genius,  _ as he called it, would be on record for posterity.”

Aziraphale grimaced. “Oh dear.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Crowley said. “But if you want to read whatever his last book was, I’d guess he hasn’t changed the place he stored them. It was in the desk in his flat.”

“We’ve gone through the desk,” Aziraphale said, “or, well, the police have, and they told me there’s no sign of any of Ferno’s writing.”

Crowley, for some reason, flushed red. “Yeah. Well. Thing is, there’s a secret drawer in the desk. Top right drawer, if you open it, there’s a little switch that you flick in the back corner and the false bottom’ll come up.”

He demonstrated the motion, using the table between them as a prop, and Aziraphale watched his hands mime opening the drawer and finding the switch. He tried not to notice the dexterity of Crowley’s fingers, the way the veins moved on the back of his hands, the flexing of his forearms as he pretended to remove a piece of wood. Aziraphale felt his own hands unconsciously imitating the motion, committing it to muscle memory for use at Ferno’s flat later. He looked down at himself, seeing the difference between his hands and Crowley’s, the neat trim of his own fingernails, the palms free of calluses. Crowley’s fingernails, he saw, were growing overlong—he rather doubted there was a manicurist on staff at the prison—and he could see, if he looked closely, where dirt had caught underneath them. He thought, briefly, of Crowley’s flat, the almost oppressive cleanliness of the place, and failed to reconcile that with the current disheveled state of its owner.

He felt eyes on him, and looked up. Crowley, he saw, had been watching  _ him,  _ too, as Aziraphale had been repeating the drawer-opening motion over and over, his gaze fixed on Aziraphale’s hands.

Aziraphale, hastily, folded them in his lap.

“That’s—a good tip,” he said, haltingly. “About the drawer. I’ll have to go look, see whether I can’t find it. It’s interesting,” he said, laughing a little, “that Ferno should have such a thing in his desk. It’s rather silly, don’t you think?”

Crowley squirmed in his seat. “Actually,” he said, voice low, “it was—that used to be my desk. Louis sort of...took it over, while we were together, and then by the time things went bust I didn’t particularly want it any longer. And he said,” Crowley continued, scorn creeping into his tone, “that it’d be a  _ museum piece  _ someday, the desk Louis Ferno wrote his masterpieces on. So I let him take it with him. That’s how I know about the drawer. I was the one who had it put in.”

“But—why?”

Crowley glared purposefully at the ground. “I thought it’d be neat, that’s all,” he said, defensively. “‘S the sort of thing you see in novels, isn’t it? Secret compartments for your papers?”

Something inside Aziraphale softened. Because of course—Crowley wrote  _ mystery  _ novels, he wrote about things like hidden drawers and missing papers and secret compartments in desks, and it was, he realized, incredibly endearing that he should have attempted to make fiction into reality. He remembered, too, the way Crowley had spoken about his novels before, the self-deprecation, the mention of how Ferno had demeaned him, calling them  _ clever little puzzles,  _ and the thought struck him that perhaps Crowley truly  _ enjoyed  _ his work and felt obligated to hide that fact because of how he’d been mocked for it in the past. It had no doubt been easier, Aziraphale thought, to make fun of himself before others could do it for him.

“It’s very clever, I think,” he said, firmly.

Crowley glanced up, watched his face as though searching it for insincerity.

“I do hope,” Aziraphale said, after a moment, “that this whole to-do won’t have ruined your work for you. You said, I remember, that you didn’t think I’d like your books, because I’m a real detective. Are you—that is, I’d understand if you were worried that you’d stop liking them, now that you’ve got yourself caught up in one.”

Crowley made a face. “Maybe I ought to have written dull modern novels,” he said, dryly. “Could’ve gotten away with an existential crisis when my books started  _ happening  _ to me, instead of a murder case.”

“Look,” Aziraphale said, “Virgil Vane always solves the case in the end, doesn’t he?”

“He does, at that.”

“Well, then,” Aziraphale said, “if we had to end up in a mystery story, I’m glad it’s one of yours.”

* * *

Anathema Device was bored.

Working at Hastur and Ligur’s wasn’t particularly interesting in and of itself, and she’d found few opportunities to do any more investigation for Lord Aziraphale. This was mostly due to her instructions to prioritize staying on the job over taking a risk digging around and possibly getting spotted; it seemed Lord Aziraphale wasn’t ready to let Hastur and Ligur know that someone was poking around their offices.

And there had been no sign of Ferno’s final manuscript yet, even though Anathema had filed a different client’s latest proofs and taken the opportunity to flip through every drawer in the cabinet looking for it. It wasn’t with the others—either with Ferno’s other novels or the latest acquisitions. It looked, in fact, as though Hastur and Ligur had purposefully  _ hidden  _ the manuscript for some reason, which she reported back to Lord Aziraphale in a note. 

She received a call from Pulsifer, the valet, shortly afterwards. “We’re awf’ly short on time,” he said, stammering a bit. “Lord Aziraphale says you’re not to bother anymore with trying to find the new Ferno book. He’s got a different lead on that. What he needs now is for you to try and find out the current financial status of the company. Assets, debts, all of that. Especially anything about the Hades Trust. And,” he added, “you can stop being so careful. That is—don’t get  _ caught,  _ poking around, but if you see a chance to get a look at something promising, take it, even if it’ll look suspicious after the fact.”

Anathema didn’t bother to ask why. The newspapers were reporting breathlessly that Anthony Crowley’s new trial was only four days away; Lord Aziraphale must be getting desperate to solve the case, and it wasn’t as though Anathema would be staying employed with Hastur and Ligur beyond the investigation’s now rapidly-approaching conclusion. 

“How am I to know what’s worth it?” she asked, instead. “I might only get the one chance.”

Pulsifer paused for a moment. “You’ll have to trust your instinct and training,” he said, at last. “Use your best judgement. See if it feels right.”

Anathema nodded, and then realized that wasn’t helpful over the telephone. “Instinct. Got it.”

“Good luck,” the valet said, and rang off.

She went in to work the next day so full of nervous energy that she felt as though it must be immediately visible to everyone; a sort of aura of anxiety pulsing around her. But Hastur and Ligur didn’t seem to notice a thing, and Anathema concluded that either she looked less jumpy than she felt, or they simply didn’t take enough notice of her for it to matter.

This was, of course, all to the good, as she spent the day starting out of her seat at doors opening and glancing around her like a neurotic rabbit. 

_ Trust your instincts,  _ she reminded herself. And she had  _ such  _ good instincts, didn’t she? She’d known to answer the advertisement from Lord Aziraphale; she’d figured out how to get around Mrs. Usher to find the contract; surely she could determine what might be worth losing her position for.

The financial status of the company, Pulsifer had said. Or the Hades Trust. 

Anathema decided to be somewhat bolder in her investigations, taking any opportunity she could to poke around in files and drawers that weren’t supposed to concern her. She wagered she had one extra chance to get caught and pass it off as an honest mistake; Hastur and Ligur didn’t seem intelligent enough to suspect her immediately. 

She found contracts and manuscripts that had nothing to do with Ferno; she found the new Anthony Crowley novel, in proof form, and resisted glancing at the last page to see how it all worked out (Anathema was the sort of person who liked to know what was coming, even in fiction). She sought out numbers wherever she could find them, scanning through documents, her eyes catching on figures that might be useful. Unfortunately, she had to admit that none of them were. 

At around three o’clock, Hastur called her in and asked where she’d filed the notes from one of last week’s client meetings.

“It’s not in with the other notes from Thursday,” he said, not looking up from the stack of papers in front of him. “Find it.”

Anathema hesitated for a moment before heading to one of the file cabinets. “It might have been in here, sir,” she said, “but—” she tried the top drawer— “I think it’s locked now—”

She looked over at Hastur to find his face suffused with anger.

_ “Not  _ that one,” he said, roughly.

Anathema, sensing opportunity, feigned innocence. “But, sir, I really think—”

“Do you have ears, girl, it’s not that one!”

“Right,” Anathema said, quickly. “Erm—” She glanced around, locating the correct (unlocked) cabinet and retrieving the notes.

_ “Thank  _ you,” Hastur said, irritably, and snatched them out of her offering hand. “That’s all, then.”

“Yes, sir,” said Anathema, and withdrew back to her desk in the lobby.

She sat debating with herself for nearly half an hour. Clearly there was something of note in that locked top drawer, something Hastur didn’t want her—or anyone—to see. But she had no idea whether it was actually relevant to Ferno or the Crowley case; for all she knew, Hastur could be hiding something as comparatively innocuous as a collection of sexually explicit photographs. 

She thrust  _ that  _ image out of her mind, and thought harder. It was tempting to take the obvious lead, after so long without finding anything worth reporting on. But the day was almost over, and she didn’t have any sort of plan for gaining access to the office—she highly doubted the lizard-food trick would work on Mrs. Usher again. 

She had just about decided to telephone Lord Aziraphale that night and ask for his advice before taking any further steps, when Ligur came out of his office.

“Miss Device?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Mrs. Usher’s laid up with the ‘flu,” he said, “and Mr. Hastur and I have a meeting in the City at four. You’ll have to lock up after you’re done. Leave the keys with the guard in the building next door.”

He laid a set of keys on Anathema’s desk. “And no cutting out early after we’ve left,” he added. “I’ll be asking the guard to report back on what time you give him the keys, and if it’s a moment before five you needn’t come back tomorrow.”

Anathema was torn between offence that Ligur didn’t trust her and knowledge that, well, he  _ shouldn’t  _ trust her. But both of these paled in comparison to her elation at the realization that she was actually going to be left alone in the office tonight.

“Don’t worry, sir,” she said, realizing Ligur was still standing there. “I’ll make certain to stay till my work’s done.”

Ligur harrumphed. “You’d better,” he said.

He was joined by Hastur a minute later, and without another good-bye to Anathema they were gone.

She waited a full twenty minutes to make certain they weren’t coming back before jumping up from her seat and hurrying to Hastur’s office with the set of keys.

Anathema found the door key easily enough, and, unlocking it and pushing it open, hurried to the cabinet she’d seen earlier.

None of the keys Ligur had given her worked on the drawer’s lock—not exactly surprising, given that it was in Hastur’s office. She reached into her pocket for the lockpicks, pulling out—nothing.

Anathema tried the other pocket. Empty. Had she...she thought back to that morning, getting ready for work, and realized that she’d been so distracted by the day ahead that she must have entirely forgotten to bring her lockpicks along with her.

She sank to the ground, back sliding against the cabinet, and dropped her head in her hands. Of all the  _ idiotic  _ things—forgetting the  _ one  _ tool that was absolutely essential to her task here…

She swore colourfully under her breath, drove her palm into her forehead, and, having exhausted the immediate options available to her for relief of frustration, decided instead to  _ think. _

Anathema was in Hastur’s office. Her lockpicks were in her flat, resting comfortably on the table where she’d left them. She could, she supposed, leave work now, nip back home, get them, and come back—except, she realized, that the guard next door would be reporting back as to what time she left, and it was still well before five o’clock. She could wait till five, leave  _ then,  _ and return—but she was supposed to give the guard the keys when she left, and he wasn’t particularly likely to give them  _ back.  _ She could leave  _ without  _ giving him the keys—only she didn’t quite trust that she’d be able to sneak out and back in without attracting his attention and being made to give up the keys. She was right  _ here,  _ in the office, right next to the drawer—it seemed the height of foolishness to abandon that advantage.

So. She’d have to work with what she had.

Anathema inhaled sharply and stood up to examine the lock on the drawer. It was fairly simple, all things considered, and if she’d had her lockpicks it would’ve been an easy enough mechanism to get around. Actually—it was, from what she could tell, exactly the  _ same  _ mechanism as the one on the drawer that had contained Ferno’s contract. 

She thought back to the lockpicking lessons she’d received when she’d first started at the typing bureau. For simple locks, she’d been told, lockpicks were best to stay undetected, but there were other options in a pinch…

Anathema reached up and pulled a hairpin off of her head. The end was thicker than what she was accustomed to, and it didn’t bend as easily as her lockpicks, but it was  _ something,  _ anyway, and if the lock looked a little tampered-with the next day, well, Pulsifer had said it was all right if she seemed suspicious after the fact, hadn’t he?

She took a deep breath, steadying her trembling hands, and pushed the pin into the lock.

* * *

The phone rang just after six. Aziraphale tried to ignore the pang of hope that went through him at the sound. It was most likely nothing, he told himself firmly, just his brother calling about some boring Society gathering he’d have to put in an appearance at, or the fellow from Christie’s about that fifteenth-century copy of Cicero he’d been looking for— 

“Residence of Lord Aziraphale Eastgate,” he heard Newt say from the next room. “Oh—yes, Miss Device, I believe I can get him for you, just a moment—”

Aziraphale stood up hastily, nearly knocking over his wineglass. “It’s Miss Device?” he asked, crossing into the sitting room.

Newt, looking a bit startled, handed him the receiver. “Yes, sir, I believe she’s got something to report.”

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said, keeping his voice controlled, and took it. “Hello, Miss Device?”

“Oh! Lord Aziraphale, hello,” Anathema said, voice clear through the telephone line.

“Have you found something out about Hastur and Ligur?”

“That’s the thing,” Anathema said, and he could hear the excitement in her tone. “It’s  _ not  _ Hastur and Ligur. It’s only Hastur.”

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale paced around, stopping only when constrained by the telephone cord. 

“I was able to get a look at some files in Hastur’s office,” Anathema said. “In a drawer that even Ligur doesn’t have the key to...Lord Aziraphale, he’s been embezzling from the company. For years, it seems. He’s the one who handles all the financials, and there’s these large sums of money getting drained from the accounts every year. It looks like he invested most of his funds in the Hades Trust, a few years back, and when that went bust he lost it all and has been pouring the company’s money into it ever since.”

“And if they’d had to make the payout to Ferno…” Aziraphale said, noticing on some removed level that his hand was gripping the telephone receiver so tightly he’d gone white-knuckled, “then Ligur—”

“Would have found out Hastur was stealing, yes, because there’s no chance they could’ve afforded it.”

“And then he gets brought up for fraud at the  _ very  _ least,” Aziraphale said, mostly to himself. “Yes. Yes. That could be—we might have a motive, Miss Device.”

“I’m so glad,” Anathema said. “Should I—I mean, is there anything else…?”

“Go back to work tomorrow, if you can,” Aziraphale said. “If you get an opportunity to look at something else, take it, but the first sign Hastur’s onto you and you’re out of there, do you understand? If he’s killed once…”

He thought he heard Anathema swallow, on the other end of the line. “I—yes. I understand, sir.”

“You’ve done good work, Miss Device,” Aziraphale said. “I do mean that.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Anathema, and rang off. 

Aziraphale placed the receiver gently down. He wanted—he didn’t know what, to make some gesture of victory, some expression of the idea that they might finally,  _ finally  _ have got somewhere, because they had a  _ motive. _

Newt, who had withdrawn after handing Aziraphale the telephone, came back into the room. “Sir, I wasn’t listening on purpose, but—do we have a motive?”

“We have a  _ lovely  _ motive, Newt,” Aziraphale said, feeling the smile break across his face, “we have a beautifully  _ plausible  _ motive, and we have it for one of the only people who had anything like an opportunity.”

Newt nodded. “That’s—that’s very good, sir.”

“I should say so, Newt,” Aziraphale said, feeling as though he might well levitate up from the floor out of pure giddy excitement. “It’s positively  _ splendid,  _ it’s  _ magnificent,  _ it’s simply  _ smashing—”  _ He broke off.

“Do you need another synonym, sir, because I can fetch the thesaurus—”

Aziraphale waved a dismissive hand at Newt. “No. No, it’s not that. It’s—look, all this time we’ve been thinking it was Hastur  _ and  _ Ligur, and that they’d somehow wangled giving Ferno the poison when they all had tea together. Oh, I know, Mary Hodges’ evidence shows that there wasn’t anything Ferno ate that Hastur or Ligur didn’t, but I’d been, well, imagining that they’d somehow contrived to make it  _ appear  _ that way to her, since she wasn’t actually actively watching them the entire time. But if Ligur wasn’t in on it, then Hastur would’ve had to make certain that Ferno got the arsenic and he and Ligur  _ didn’t,  _ all without tipping Ligur off. Which is a great deal more difficult to wangle.”

“But not impossible?”

Aziraphale shook his head slowly. “Not  _ impossible,  _ no, but it would have to be something  _ clever,  _ something I’m not able to think of at the moment. And, well, I’ve  _ met  _ Hastur, I’ve talked to him, and I must say I didn’t get the sense that he was canny enough to pull off anything of the sort. If this murder was done the way it  _ must  _ have been done, it was bold and cunning and required a great deal of nerve, and either I’m very wrong in my perception of Hastur or I’m missing something much more obvious.”

“How are you going to determine which, sir?”

The initial rush of heady glee had now well and truly subsided, and Aziraphale sighed heavily. “I’m not entirely certain.”

* * *

Newton Pulsifer was not naturally assertive. He’d gone into domestic service in part because of the opportunity to be told definitively what to do, no second-guessing or getting it wrong required.

Working for Lord Aziraphale Eastgate had been rather different than he’d expected, when he’d been sent by the employment agency to interview. Newt hadn’t anticipated working for someone who held himself to such high standards of dress, and who cared seemingly so little for whether his valet had the skills to carry them out. He also, of course, had never imagined that so much of his position would entail  _ investigation. _

He had been, either accompanying Lord Aziraphale or sent on his own, to parts of London he’d scarcely even heard of before, to fine country estates and run-down farms, even to the Continent (where he’d learned that at least he had the advantage over Lord Aziraphale in one key area: the ability to speak passable French). 

So Louis Ferno’s Bloomsbury flat was far from the most interesting or unusual place Newt had seen, for all its carefully-arranged Bohemian disorder.

Lord Aziraphale certainly seemed less than impressed with the decor, saying something under his breath about  _ that damn vainglorious fool  _ as he examined the shelves and drawers.

“My lord?” Newt asked, haltingly.

Lord Aziraphale didn’t stop his search, but he nodded. “Yes?”

“I was wondering,” Newt said. “You said, yesterday, that we had plenty of motive for Hastur but no idea of how he might actually have managed it. But mightn’t that be enough?”

“Motive’s nothing without anything linking him to the actual crime.”

“Well, that would be true if it were  _ Hastur  _ on trial,” Newt pressed on, “but it’s not, is it? It’s Mr. Crowley, and all we need to do is induce reasonable doubt in the jury to get him off.”

Lord Aziraphale abandoned the book he’d been flipping through and turned abruptly to face Newt. “What are you saying?”

“If we can’t find enough evidence to prove Hastur did it, mightn’t we be able just to muddle things up enough for the jury that they aren’t sure that  _ Mr. Crowley  _ did? They weren’t willing to convict even without this extra information; they might well be willing to acquit with it.”

Lord Aziraphale shook his head. “Understand me, Newt. I’m not interested in  _ muddling things up,  _ or sowing seeds of doubt, or even simply getting an acquittal. What we are going to do,” he said, voice tight with tension, “is solve this case and clear Crowley’s name, fully and completely, so that there’s not a single person in England who believes him remotely guilty of this murder.”

“Yes, sir,” Newt said, appropriately chastised. “Understood.”

Lord Aziraphale nodded. “Now then. Where’s that desk?”

He glanced around, then crossed the flat to a large wooden desk pushed into a corner.

Newt watched from the other side of the room as Lord Aziraphale opened the top drawer and stuck his hand in, performing some sort of motion on the space inside.

“Just as he said,” he said, softly, and Newt, coming closer to take a look, noticed a smile on his face of a quality he’d never quite seen before, as though he were watching something beautiful come over the horizon.

He reached into the drawer with both hands and withdrew a stack of papers. “Louis Ferno’s novels,” he said, and Newt nodded, not entirely certain what this had to do with anything.

Lord Aziraphale sorted through the pile, separating out one particular group of papers. “Here we are, then.” He flipped to the first page. “Let’s see what sort of pretentious bilge the fellow came up with this time—” He stopped, suddenly, and stared at the page for a moment, then began rifling quickly through the rest of the manuscript.

“Is something wrong, sir?” Newt asked tentatively.

Lord Aziraphale looked up. “Not  _ wrong,”  _ he said. “But it seems Louis Ferno’s final book was a murder mystery.” 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to runningturnip and attheborder for beta reading!

There were two armchairs in Aziraphale’s sitting room, one used with a great deal more frequency than the other. It would, perhaps, have made more sense to switch off which chair he sat in when alone, but the often-used chair had gradually become more and more comfortable, and there seemed little enough point in swapping just for the sake of equity. (And, after all, it wasn’t as though he couldn’t afford to replace chairs as needed.) The other, disused armchair was slightly closer to the door, and in the late afternoon, light streamed through the window and shone onto its seat.

Aziraphale was already seated when Newt showed Hastur in, but he rose to shake hands.

“So good of you to come,” he said. “Would you like anything to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

“Coffee,” said Hastur, gruffly.

“Newt, please fetch our guest some coffee,” Aziraphale said, motioning for Hastur to sit in the other armchair. “Do you take it black, or…”

“Sugar, please.”

“Excellent,” Aziraphale said, and sat down himself. “Now then. I _do_ appreciate your coming by.”

Hastur grunted. “Not really sure that I can help you much, y’r lordship. Told you all I know.”

“Oh yes,” Aziraphale said, lightly. “But, you know, I do think there’s a few things that you may be able to clear up for me, as it happens.”

Hastur shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

Newt re-entered with two cups of coffee and a sugar bowl, which he placed on the table between the armchairs. “Anything else, sir?”

“Mr. Hastur? Anything else?”

Hastur waved a hand. “No, thank you.”

Newt nodded his head and scurried out.

“Now, then,” Aziraphale said, taking a sip of his coffee and watching Hastur spoon sugar eagerly into his, “if you don’t mind, I should like to review some of the more salient points of the case.”

“Yes, all right,” said Hastur, a touch impatiently. He added another lump of sugar.

“I’ll start, as I did in reality, with the assumption that Anthony Crowley was innocent.”

“Yes, ‘course,” said Hastur, “our client, you know, never thought otherwise.”

“Indeed. There was, of course, the problem of opportunity, as it seemed that, absent something at the Sitting Duck that had gone unnoticed, nobody had had any chance to safely administer the arsenic to Ferno. Well. Nobody except Crowley. So we proceeded to motive. Although—and you will forgive me being a trifle outspoken, given that he was your client, and _de mortuis nihil nisi bonum_ and all that—Ferno seems to have been rather a first-class rat, I didn’t find that there were exactly scads of people bursting with lovely personal motives. And Ferno certainly wasn’t _wealthy—_ his books weren’t selling well, not since _Myriads,_ and he hadn’t much family money. So that knocked inheritance out as a motive.”

Aziraphale glanced at Hastur, who was beginning to look a trifle glazed-over. “I see you’ve finished your coffee,” he said, politely. “Can I have Newt fetch you any more?”

Hastur started. “Oh—yes,” he said.

Newt entered with unaccustomed alacrity before Aziraphale could call. “More coffee, sir?”

Hastur made to hand over the cup, but Aziraphale lifted a hand to forestall him. “Why don’t you bring in the entire pot, Newt?”

“Yes, m’lord,” Newt said, and left and returned a moment later with a heavy metal coffee-pot. “May I pour for you, sir?”

Hastur nodded briefly, and Newt filled up the cup, placed the pot on the table, and left again.

“So,” Aziraphale continued, watching as Hastur deposited sugar into his fresh cup of coffee, “I turned my attention to Ferno’s _professional_ life. After all, he and Crowley were connected primarily through your firm—besides their former personal relationship, of course—and certainly I think Ferno would have described his work as the driving passion of his life. _Myriads Though Bright_ was certainly a brilliant success for your business, I’d say, and I imagine you were only too eager to sign on talented young Louis Ferno for several more books, on whatever terms you could get him. Only, you know, he _wasn’t_ all that talented, in my opinion and it would seem in the opinions of the British reading public, because he just never _really_ hit that same level of popularity again, did he? But you kept paying out these large advances, and you kept publishing his books, because you had to.”

Hastur was starting to look a trifle livelier, whether from the coffee or from Aziraphale’s conversation.

“It wasn’t _good_ for your business, no, but then, you had Anthony Crowley writing for you, too, and you’d locked up _that_ contract well enough that you were making plenty of money off his sales. It wasn’t going to run you into the ground to pay Ferno his advances. In fact, I’d imagine when he told you he wanted to write a mystery story for his next book, you thought it was a _grand_ idea. He and Crowley must have still been together, at that point. And even if you didn’t care for their relationship, on whatever moral grounds you might have thought you had, it was certainly good for _business._ You were likely already thinking of ways to spin it, weren’t you? Two detective-fiction writers, living together, collaborating on their writing…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hastur said, uneasily. “Louis wasn’t a mystery author.”

“No,” Aziraphale said, “he wasn’t, was he? So when you received the manuscript and found that it was so much drivel—I mean, _really_ derivative stuff, massive cribbing from the Virgil Vane novels—there went all your lovely hopes of Ferno becoming an _asset._ And, meantime, you’d invested a sum of the firm’s money in a little side venture of your own, hadn’t you, Mr. Hastur? The Hades Trust? And it went bust, and, well, then things became a little more urgent with Ferno. Because, of course, if you’d had to pay him the advance, Ligur would have found out about your skimming, and, well, I’m sure I don’t have to explain to _you_ why that wouldn’t have worked out for you at all.”

“This is ridiculous,” Hastur said, placing the coffee-cup down with some vigour. “I don’t—you can’t have one _shred_ of proof—”

“Perhaps not,” said Aziraphale. He smiled coldly. “Do let me finish. I think you must have put your plan in place some time ago—if it went the way I think it did, you’d have had to—and you kept fobbing off Ferno, delaying publication of his manuscript, and delaying payment. I suspect you made certain he didn’t mention that he’d changed genres to anyone—certainly not to Crowley—and then they split up, and you didn’t have to worry about _that_ anymore. But, I suppose that relationship going bust made Ferno more anxious to get his book published, as he didn’t have Crowley supporting him anymore. He probably even thought, thick as he seems to have been, that he’d come off looking like the superior writer, show Crowley just what he’d let slip away. So he’d _really_ have started putting the pressure on you, I’d say, and he probably threatened to sue, and, well, that’s when you finally took action and killed him.”

Hastur snorted. “And how d’you think I did _that?”_

“Why, by giving him arsenic at the tea that you had with him and Ligur at your office the day he died, of course,” Aziraphale said, blinking innocently. “I should’ve thought that was clear.”

“Nothing Louis ate that day was poisoned,” Hastur said, “not in our office, anyway, just tea from the general stock, and, and sugar, and biscuits, nothin’ that Ligur or I didn’t eat as well, you know—”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, “I’ll admit to being a trifle puzzled by that, at first. Once it became clear that you and Ligur weren’t in it together, it seemed unlikely that you could have managed things so that only Ferno got the arsenic. I considered the assistance of Mary Hodges as a possibility, but, for several reasons, I simply couldn’t see her being involved.”

“There wasn’t anything for her to be involved _with—”_

“But, you know,” Aziraphale continued, not paying Hastur any mind, “there were always the biscuits.”

Hastur’s face paled a bit.

Aziraphale smiled slightly. “They were, I believe, identified as a _gift from a client,_ but no one seemed to know _which_ client they were from—odd, I thought, because obviously one doesn’t send unsigned tokens of appreciation to one’s publishers, that rather defeats the point. I inquired with the postman who services your building, and interestingly, he didn’t remember having brought any packages that were the approximate size or shape of the biscuit-tin to the office that day or the day before. He could have forgotten, of course, but it was...suggestive. And those biscuits, you know—or perhaps you don’t—with the powdered sugar and the jam filling, they’re not so common as you might expect. Only a few shops in London that sell them, in fact. So it was quite possible to visit all of them with your photograph and ask whether they’d seen anyone of that description recently.”

“No crime to buy biscuits, is it?”

“Hardly,” said Aziraphale cordially. “It is, however, to tamper with a tin of them and add arsenic in place of powdered sugar and serve it up to your guest.”

Hastur shook his head. “What, like I could—sprinkle arsenic onto a few biscuits and make sure Louis got those? I could remind you,” he said, lifting his coffee cup for another sip, “that Mary Hodges was the one who handed ‘em out, not me. No way for me to guarantee a biscuit went to Louis.”

“No, you’re quite right,” said Aziraphale, “only, you see, I’ve read Ferno’s final novel.”

The coffee cup shattered on the floor.

“Oh dear,” said Aziraphale. “Well, we’ll leave it for now, shall we? I’m just getting to the good bit.”

“I don’t know what you think you found,” Hastur said, “but—the book—only copy’s at our offices, I can tell you, there’s nothing in it that could possibly—”

“Oh, no, I don’t believe you _do_ have a copy at your offices. I did think it odd, you know, that your firm hadn’t jumped at the chance to posthumously publish the last Ferno novel. Regardless of quality, one assumes the book-purchasing public would fairly eat the stuff up, even if they were never so obliging as to do it before the author kicked the bucket. No, Mr. Hastur, I think you burned that manuscript, and it’s only bad luck for you that Ferno kept an extra copy at his flat.”

Hastur stuttered incoherently.

“I won’t bother recounting the entire plot,” Aziraphale said, waving his hand. _“Very_ derivative, as I’ve said. Simply horrid characterization, you know. Still, I _am_ glad I slogged my way through it, because the _denouement_ rather made up for the whole thing. It’s a case of arsenic poisoning—interesting, that, by the by, as we know Crowley’s novel was about that, too; although, there are only so many methods of murder worth writing about, one supposes—and the way it ends up is that the chap who did it had actually managed to make himself immune to arsenic, by taking a little bit every day until he was able to swallow down a dose that might kill any ordinary person, no problem at all, not even a tummy rumble. Very clever stuff, really. Sort of thing that might give a person ideas, Mr. Hastur.”

Hastur stood up. 

“Careful of the china shards,” Aziraphale said mildly. “I simply couldn’t bear it if you hurt yourself.”

“I don’t—if you mean to accuse me of _murder_ on the basis of some bloody _detective story_ Louis wrote, I don’t have to _sit here_ and listen to this, what, are you saying I—I—”

“Spent the past several months developing arsenic tolerance? I am, in fact, saying that. And that you used said tolerance to murder Louis Ferno with the arsenic you’d placed in that tin of biscuits, which you knew full well Ligur wouldn’t touch.”

“Immune to arsenic, I mean, that’s—that’s the sort of thing that writers make up to create plot twists out of, it’s not—you don’t think I’d actually take _poison_ and survive it—”

“It’s interesting you should say that, because, as it happens, that sugar you’ve been spooning so liberally into your coffee is, in fact, laced with arsenic, and you have by this point ingested what ought, to an ordinary person, to be a lethal dose. So it’s _very_ interesting to me, Mr. Hastur, that you seem entirely unaffected by it.”

Hastur let out a screech of sheer fury and clutched at his stomach. “God _damn_ you, Eastgate, you’ve _poisoned_ me—”

“I really haven’t,” Aziraphale said, mildly, “given that it doesn’t seem to be giving you the _slightest_ bit of trouble.”

Hastur swiped his arm across the table, sending the sugar bowl and coffee-pot flying and shattering Aziraphale’s cup into several pieces.

“My, you _are_ a hard one on the crockery,” Aziraphale observed. 

“You _bastard,”_ Hastur spat.

“I wouldn’t go insulting the Dowager Duchess of Arcadia like that,” Aziraphale said, clucking his tongue. “Might give people the wrong impression.”

“People like you make me _sick,_ poncy little aristocrat poking around in ordinary people’s lives for fun—”

“I happen to have a strong interest in pursuing _justice—”_

“You’ve got a strong interest in Anthony Crowley’s trousers, that’s what you’ve got.”

Aziraphale stood up, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “I’ll thank you not to make insinuations, Mr. Hastur.”

Hastur laughed shrilly. “Yeah, I killed Louis, is that what you want to hear? I killed ‘im. And I’d do it again, he was no good, he was a little shit, and that Crowley’s no better, I’d poison the lot of you if it were up to me.”

Aziraphale inhaled sharply. “Sergeant Shadwell?” he called. “I think that ought to be enough for you to be going along with, oughtn’t it?”

Shadwell came shuffling in, followed closely by Newt and two policemen. “Think it should, m’lord,” he said. “Confession’s not admissible in court, ‘course, but if he’s been takin’ arsenic as you say, we’ll be able to find the evidence of it in his hair and nails, I’d think.”

“Indeed,” Aziraphale said, passing a hand over his face. 

“Providing—” Shadwell cocked his head. “Did you _actually_ poison him, m’lord? Only it’ll throw off the medical evidence, if y’have…”

“No, no.” Aziraphale shook his head. “It’s only ordinary sugar, you can test it if you like—well, you can’t now, as it’s on the floor, but you can ask Newt here, he’ll swear to it.”

“No need, m’lord,” Shadwell said, and tipped his hat.

Hastur had let out a despairing wail upon the revelation that he’d not been poisoned, and was currently struggling against the policemen who had him in arms. “Tricked me, you snobby son-of-a—”

“That’s enough out of _you,_ then,” Shadwell said, turning to him. “In your interests to be quiet, it is, you’re in custody now.”

Hastur growled at him.

Shadwell sighed. “Anythin’ else, m’lord?”

“No, thank you,” Aziraphale said, “do let me know if you need my testimony in the case, of course, I’ll be happy to oblige.”

“Right you are, m’lord,” Shadwell said, and proceeded, along with the policemen and Hastur, out of the house.

Aziraphale sank back into his preferred armchair.

“I’ll—clean up the mess, shall I?” Newt asked, closing the door behind their visitors and returning to the sitting room.

“In a moment,” Aziraphale said.

Newt hovered with all the nervous solicitousness of a mother bumblebee. “Are you—is everything quite all right, my lord?”

“Oh yes,” Aziraphale said. 

“Very clever, with the sugar.”

“It was a dirty trick, Newt,” Aziraphale said, lifting his head to face him, “it wasn’t the sort of thing I—”

“But you didn’t _actually_ poison him, sir.”

“It might’ve been more honest if I had. I’d rather have just—” he waved his hands in the air— “just, gathered the facts together, given them to Shadwell. Tested his hair and nails myself. Tracked down his arsenic purchases. He’d have to have bought it several times, over the past few months, he’d have been recognized…”

“Why didn’t you do all that, then?”

“Because I didn’t have _time,_ Newt,” Aziraphale said, hearing the tightness in his own voice. “Because Anthony Crowley’s trial is—was—scheduled for next week, and without a strong enough case against Hastur they might have gone ahead with it and tried him anyway.”

“But he’d have got off, wouldn’t he?” Newt asked. “Reasonable doubt, and all? Even if you didn’t have an iron-clad case against Hastur—”

“Oh, he’d have got off,” Aziraphale said bitterly. “But it’s as I said, I wanted—I do want—for them to dismiss the case entirely. Not a bit of ambiguity. _Tried for the murder of his lover and acquitted for it—_ it’s not something you want hanging round your neck. People tend to leave off the last bit, you see.”

“Well, then, it seems you did what you had to do, sir.”

“I wonder, Newt,” Aziraphale said, quietly. “I wonder.”

* * *

“The paperwork’s been filed,” Aziraphale said. “You’re still to go in for the trial tomorrow, but the Crown’s going to withdraw its evidence, and you’ll be free to go. Case completely dropped.”

Crowley shook his head. “I can’t—it’s hard to believe.”

“That Hastur did it?”

Crowley’s face cracked into a grin. “Not _that,_ precisely, no. Never liked the fellow. No, it’s just—the whole thing. That it was about _money,_ the whole time…”

“It does seem rather ironic that someone as odious as Ferno should have been killed only on account of financials,” Aziraphale agreed. “Although, I suppose, if he hadn’t been so pushy to get his due, Hastur might have found a different way out of the mess.”

“And it was a mystery he was writing?”

“A _very_ bad one, really,” Aziraphale said. “Nothing like yours, I mean. Pale imitation.”

“That’s kind of you,” Crowley said, “I’m just—Louis always seemed to think mysteries were about the lowest form of writing there is. He told me I was _making light_ of death, pandering to the masses, all that rot.”

“Surely you didn’t believe him?”

“Oh, no, but I thought he believed himself.”

“Well, you’d found out he was a—how did you put it—a false idol already, hadn’t you? I suppose this is only more proof that Ferno was less concerned with his artistic integrity than he was with turning a quick shilling.”

“I don’t know whether that’s fair,” Crowley said. “He hadn’t got me supporting him anymore, I expect he had to make a living _somehow.”_

“Yes, and he stole your genre to do it—a long time, I might add, _before_ you’d shown him the door. He gave that manuscript to Hastur nearly a year ago. He was living off your work _and_ copying it.”

“Must’ve been.” Crowley shook his head. “And so Louis planned his own murder, hmm?” 

_Serves the worm right,_ Aziraphale thought, but didn’t speak aloud. He had wondered whether his immense dislike of Louis Ferno would dissipate some after arresting his killer. It had definitely _not,_ and Aziraphale worried that he was perhaps taking an entirely too personal interest in smearing Ferno’s memory.

“At any rate,” he said aloud, “by end-of-day tomorrow you’ll be free as a bird.”

Crowley spread his arms wide. “Looking forward to stretching my wings.” He leaned back in the chair a bit, rolling his shoulders forward and returning his hands to the table in front of them, gripping its edge while balancing the chair on its rear legs. 

“I’m glad of it,” Aziraphale said quietly, not looking at him.

Crowley returned the front legs of the chair to the ground with a thunk. “I’m—” he began. “Listen—”

Aziraphale glanced up instinctively. Crowley’s face was animated, open, sincere, no mask of courtesy or composure.

“What you’ve done…” he said, apparently grasping for words. “I mean, it sounds ridiculous to say it out loud—if I put it in a book the reviewers would call it cliched, I’m sure—but you’ve saved my life. I—owe you my life.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Aziraphale said, quickly. “I don’t want—I look into things because I find them interesting, because I care about seeing the proper people punished, because I’d like to discourage murder, as a general principle. I knew you were innocent, and I didn’t wish to see an innocent man hanged, and that’s all there is to it. Please don’t feel as though you’re obliged to me. In any way.”

Something shuttered in Crowley’s gaze. “Right,” he said. “I only...”

Aziraphale exhaled sharply. It was clear to him—had been clear to him for some time, in fact—that his investment in this case went beyond mere academic or professional interest. That his instinctive defense of Crowley had just as much to do with the angle of his cheekbones as it did with Aziraphale’s innate sense of justice. He _liked_ Crowley, a great deal more than he’d have thought possible on the strength of an acquaintance conducted entirely in gaol. He found him rather overwhelmingly attractive. And—well, although Aziraphale was not by any means as skilled at deducing others’ emotions and motivations as he was at solving murders, he had gotten the sense that Crowley, for his part, might well reciprocate that attraction, that interest. That if Aziraphale were to suggest that they dine together, after Crowley’s release, Crowley would very likely accept such an invitation.

He _wanted_ to ask. He very much wanted to ask. 

But, he thought, miserably, he never could.

Because as undeniable as Aziraphale’s attraction was, it was still more undeniable that he’d put Crowley in a completely indefensible position. Oh, he could say _you don’t owe me anything_ a thousand times over, but it wouldn’t change the fact that by solving Ferno’s murder and saving Crowley’s life, he’d built their relationship on an unanswerable obligation, a debt that Crowley could never manage to repay. 

And so, if Aziraphale asked, and Crowley said yes, how could he ever know for certain that his acceptance hadn’t been shaped by some invisible pressure, by the weight of that debt? That Crowley wasn’t, either consciously or unconsciously, only agreeing to see Aziraphale because he believed he owed him his life? 

And, what was more—Aziraphale remembered Hastur’s jab: _you’ve got a strong interest in Anthony Crowley’s trousers, that’s what you’ve got._ If they were to—what, go off together, something ridiculous like that, it would be altogether too easy for the world to turn that into something sordid and scandalous, into the aristocratic private detective manipulating the police force and the facts of a murder case to free his Bohemian lover. Let anyone know he had an interest in Crowley that went beyond the professional, and he cast doubt over Crowley’s innocence, and both their reputations. 

No, it was impossible. Aziraphale smiled tightly, feeling that it didn’t reach his eyes.

Crowley, apparently reading something from the change in his expression, didn’t resume whatever train of thought he’d been on before.

The guard rapped on the door.

“Last time for that, anyway,” Aziraphale said, lightly, and stood up.

Crowley grinned. “Won’t miss it.”

“No, neither will I.” He felt himself smile back—a real one, not like before—and saw the way Crowley’s eyes lit up in response. Warmth pooled in his stomach, and he glanced away again.

“I’d try to thank you,” Crowley said, “but I suspect you’ll only tell me to wait till after I’m _officially_ a free man, yeah?”

Aziraphale murmured an indistinct _hmm_ in response. 

“Still,” Crowley continued, “standards have been relaxed a bit, around here, now that I’m innocent, so—” He rose from his chair and extended a hand across the table. “Can bid you farewell properly.”

Aziraphale reached across and took it. They’d never touched before, he realized, as their hands met. Crowley’s skin was rougher than he’d imagined, and Aziraphale felt an unexpected strength in his long fingers as they shook. 

A few seconds of contact, that was all it had been, he thought, as the handshake ended and his arm fell back against his side, but he could feel the residual warmth of Crowley’s hand, the phantom pulse of his veins against Aziraphale’s.

“Good-bye,” he said. 

“Till tomorrow.”

“Ah—yes, quite right, till tomorrow,” Aziraphale said, and nodded politely, and left.

 _I can’t ever see him again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a king reigned in the East:  
> There, when kings will sit to feast,  
> They get their fill before they think  
> With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.  
> He gathered all that springs to birth  
> From the many-venomed earth;  
> First a little, thence to more,  
> He sampled all her killing store;  
> And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,  
> Sate the king when healths went round.  
> They put arsenic in his meat  
> And stared aghast to watch him eat;  
> They poured strychnine in his cup  
> And shook to see him drink it up:  
> They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:  
> Them it was their poison hurt.
> 
> I tell the tale that I heard told.  
> Mithridates, he died old. 
> 
> —A.E. Housman, _A Shropshire Lad_
> 
> That's right, friends, there was a CLUE in the TITLE all along!
> 
> It feels odd to give what amounts to a "don't try this at home" disclaimer on a murder mystery, but for accuracy's sake: building up arsenic tolerance to allow yourself to eat it without consequence (known as Mithridatism, or, latterly, The Princess Bride Thing) is unlikely to actually be successful. This was one of the plot points I borrowed from the Sayers novel, and by the time I discovered that science had actually advanced since 1930 (who'd've thought?), I'd already started publishing and was committed to keeping the murder method intact. I apologize to any medically-minded types who might've been confused as a result.
> 
> Also want to offer a general thank-you for commenting, I've been doing a terrible job replying to them but I do read and love them all!
> 
> The last chapter is going to be more of a short epilogue, and should be up in a few days.


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to runningturnip and attheborder for beta reading!

Anthony Crowley stood in the dock and looked out at the crowd. There were fewer people than there’d been at his last trial—not strictly surprising, he supposed, given that Hastur’s arrest had been widely reported in the papers, making the outcome of today’s proceedings a foregone conclusion.

“On account of the new evidence which has come to light regarding the murder of Louis Ferno,” the judge was saying, “the Crown has withdrawn its case against Anthony Crowley.”

Crowley glanced into the gallery. Lord Aziraphale Eastgate was there, apparently alone, his eyeglass screwed in, peering down at Crowley. Their eyes met, and Aziraphale looked away. 

Crowley wrenched his attention back to the judge. “Mr. Crowley, your innocence is established and you are hereby discharged. Next case, please.”

He came downstairs a few minutes later, holding the suit-case of things he’d brought with him to gaol and wearing his own clothes again. Most of the crowd had dissipated, but there were two figures waiting for him when he emerged.

“Hello, you,” said Eric Stone, holding out a hand.

Crowley shook it. “Thanks for coming.”

“How does it feel?” Eric Williams asked. “To be a free man?”

“Fantastic,” Crowley said, grinning. “Do you, ah—have you seen Lord Aziraphale Eastgate about, anywhere?”

“He was here,” Eric Stone said, “but he left, soon as they said you were discharged. Must’ve had somewhere to be.”

“Must’ve,” Crowley echoed.

“Why, what’d you want?”

“Oh—I only wanted to thank him,” Crowley said. 

One of the Erics was saying something, but Crowley didn’t hear. He’d thought it odd, at the time, that Lord Aziraphale hadn’t stopped Crowley from thanking him at the end of their last visit. Now he understood why. Aziraphale must have known, he realized, even then, that he wouldn’t see Crowley again, and had been giving him that last opportunity to finally say thank-you.

Crowley flushed hot with shame. It was obvious, wasn’t it, what had happened? Crowley had been on the verge of saying something unguarded and stupid, and Aziraphale had shuttered immediately, no doubt to spare himself the trouble of having to reject Crowley, and spare Crowley the pain of facing that rejection. And he’d stayed at the trial only long enough to see the thing through, then left straightaway, to avoid having to see Crowley again. He’d likely wanted to prevent a scene in which Crowley gushed his thanks and Aziraphale accepted them, nodding woodenly and wondering if he’d saddled himself with more trouble than Crowley was worth.

Because—Crowley had been dead gone since he’d come into the room that first day and seen Aziraphale waiting at the table, the single incandescent light shining down on his head, haloing him like Crowley’s own personal guardian angel, sent to deliver him from whatever Hell he’d fallen into since Louis’ death. Crowley, being Crowley, had been instinctively resistant to any such aid; he’d pushed Aziraphale away with slouching posture and muttered questions—and then, he’d asked  _ why,  _ and Aziraphale hadn’t gone off about his theories, or the facts of the case, or any of that. No, he’d leaned forward and said with complete sincerity:  _ If you don’t want me to help, or, or you think I’m some sort of hopelessly aristocratic dabbler who’ll only muck everything up for you by barging in, please do tell me and I’ll leave at once, no harm done. I’m well aware I seem like an over-privileged idiot with too much time on his hands and not enough common-sense to use it for anything besides playing detective. I don’t expect to be able to convince you otherwise. _

And that had done it for Crowley, no going back; he’d fallen completely and humiliatingly in love with the man trying to save his life.

Which might’ve been  _ someone’s  _ idea of a romantic situation, but it certainly wasn’t Crowley’s. Because he didn’t much fancy being powerless, helpless, inferior in every way, the object of Aziraphale’s pity and sympathy rather than his respect and admiration. Aziraphale had been clever, and gentle, and catty (the last of which was surprisingly attractive), and Crowley had to sit there and watch him, unable to be anything other than slightly witty and hopelessly besotted himself. 

All the same, he’d thought—maybe—that Aziraphale had felt something, too. Clearly not whatever ridiculous tidal wave of adoration had swept over Crowley, but  _ something;  _ Crowley’d caught him looking, once or twice, had felt the heat in his gaze, had seen the way his eyes flicked away self-consciously. Crowley had entertained fleeting thoughts that Aziraphale might want—that Crowley might be permitted—some brief intimacy. He’d had no idea how to express that thought in a way that didn’t make it sound as though he were offering a payment for services rendered, which wasn’t _ at all  _ what Crowley intended. But Aziraphale’s quick exit seemed to squash that notion; he obviously wasn’t interested in spending another minute in Crowley’s presence.

Which was—fine, of course, he didn’t owe Crowley any more of his time, it was  _ Crowley  _ who ought to be grateful—but bitterly disappointing all the same.

“Don’t suppose you’ll see him again,” Eric Stone said. “Not like you’re exactly running in the same circles.”

“Shouldn’t think so,” Crowley agreed, feeling hollow.

Eric shrugged. “Well, you can always write, can’t you?”

* * *

_ Dear Lord Aziraphale: _

_ I hope that’s the right way to start this letter. I looked it up in an old guide I had, but I’m not sure whether it’s right. Apologies if I’m not being properly deferential. Not a lot of experience hobnobbing with the gentry, you know. _

_ I also hope you’ll forgive the liberty of my writing to you, but it doesn’t sit right with me to let this matter close without thanking you fully for all you’ve done—I hesitate to say “for me,” as that feels rather presumptuous. I’ll say: for all you’ve done in the interest of justice. _

_ So. Thank you. _

_ If it hadn’t been for your intervention, I’ve no doubt that, right now, I’d be arguing with the gaolers over the wine selection for my last meal, not sitting comfortably in my flat writing this. I’d just about lost all hope until you showed up. I would say you were sent by Heaven, but I fear I wouldn’t be giving you proper credit for your own initiative. I owe you my life. _

_ I’m aware that your helping me was not personal in any way, but I can’t help feeling a very personal sort of way about it. If that makes you uncomfortable, please don’t read the next bit. I’m going to pretend in my own mind that you aren’t reading the next bit regardless, because I’m fairly certain that’s the only way I’ll feel reckless enough to write it. _

_ I have a tremendous amount of esteem and admiration for you. I haven’t got any expectations—won’t even put my hopes into words—but I want to express the depth of my regard. You probably get that a lot, but there it is.  _

_ In the unlikely event that I can ever be of any assistance to you, please, please don’t hesitate to ask me. I’d gladly travel the world in hopes of doing you a good turn (or fight through London traffic, which might well be worse).  _

_ Thank you, once again, for the very great service you have done, both in saving me, and in helping me to feel as though I were worth being saved. _

_ Yours, in every sense of the word, _

_ Anthony Crowley _

“Is everything all right, sir?”

Aziraphale blinked rapidly. “Yes,” he said, voice coming out odd and hoarse. “Everything is—it’s...lovely, actually.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed this is now Part 1 of a series, because of course I have every intention of hooking these two idiots up eventually. I've already started planning out Part 2, which will take vague inspiration from both Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night but not as faithfully as this story followed Strong Poison. (By the way, if you have any questions about which pieces of the mystery were me vs. DLS, please ask; I'm not out to take credit for things I didn't come up with, but listing individual plot points felt like overkill.) In terms of when it'll post...well, I'm trying to avoid what happened with this story and actually stick to a more regular update schedule, which means doing more advance planning work (especially since it's a mystery and one needs to have one's entire plot worked out in advance for those, apparently. Rude). So it may be a couple of months' wait, but in service of a more compressed posting timeline.
> 
> In the meantime, I'll be updating my other human AU [ The Fine Print](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24931381/chapters/60338983), which was sadly neglected while I finished this.
> 
> Finally, thank you all so much for reading and commenting, this has been a departure for me in a number of ways and the feedback is super meaningful!


End file.
